THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 
OF  PANAMA 


THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 
OF  PANAMA 


Lieut. -Colonel  Philippe  Bunau-Varilla 

From  a  bust  by  Malvina  Hoffman  (1919) 


The  Great  Adventure 
of  Panama 


Wherein  Are  Exposed  Its  Relation  to  the  Great  War 
and  also  the  Luminous  Traces  of 

The  German  Conspiracies 

Against  France  and 

the  United  States 

By 
Philippe  Bunau-Varilla 

former  Chief  Engineer  of  the  French  Panama  Canal  Company  (1886-1886) 

Firtt  Minister  Plenipotentiary  and  Envoy  Extraordinary  of  the 

Republic  of  Panama  to  Wathington  (1903-1904) 


Doubleday,  Page  &  Company 
Garden  City     New  York  London 

1920 


•HISTOBH 


COPYRIGHT,  1920,  BY 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 

ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED,  INCLUDING  THAT  OF 

TRANSLATION  INTO  FOREIGN  LANGUAGES, 

INCLUDING  THE  SCANDINAVIAN 


DEDICATION 

I  dedicate  this  book  to  the  great  FERDINAND  DE 
LESSEPS  and  to  his  eminent  coadjutor,  CHARLES  DE 
LESSEPS,  the  Creators  of  the  Panama  Canal;  to 
the  great  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  and  to  his  eminent 
coadjutors,  JOHN  HAY  and  FRANCIS  B.  LOOMIS, 
the  Resurrectors  of  the  Panama  Canal,  whose 
Franco-American  work  has  been  the  cradle  of  the 
Victory  won  through  the  Franco-American  Union 
over  the  treacherous  Boches,1  the  Destructors 
of  the  Panama  Canal  Enterprise. 

PHILIPPE  BUNAU-VARILLA, 
Paris,  September,  1919. 


1  Iii  this  book,  it  has  been  thought  justified  to  employ  the  word  "Boche,"  instead 
of  the  word  "German,"  when  speaking  of  the  brutal,  immoral,  and  treacherous  acts 
of  Germany  toward  her  friends  or  her  neighbours. 

For  a  long  time,  in  France,  there  has  been  a  definite  line  drawn  between  the  mean- 
ing of  "Prussian"  and  that  of  "German,"  the  difference  being  about  the  same  as 
between  "evil"  and  "good." 

It  is  the  sincere  hope  of  the  author  that  Germany  will  understand  how  completely 
she  has  been  dishonoured,  not  by  her  defeat,  but  by  her  participation  in  the  Prus- 
sian infamies  committed  in  the  preparation  for  and  in  the  conduct  of  the  Great  War. 

In  the  expectation  that  the  new  German  generations  shall  redeem  their  nation's 
good  name,  the  word  "Boche"  has  been  used  instead  of  "German,"  whenever  the 
German  criminal  methods  in  diplomacy  and  in  war  are  exposed. 


416489 


PREFACE 

ON  THE  first  page  of  his  book,  "Face  to  Face 
with  Kaiserism,"  the  Hon.  James  W.  Gerard,  former 
Ambassador  of  the  United  States  to  Germany, 
wrote  on  April  1,  1918: 

What  I  want  especially  to  impress  upon  the  people  of 
the  United  States  is  that  we  are  at  war  because  Ger- 
many invaded  the  United  States — an  invasion  insidi- 
ously conceived  and  vigorously  prosecuted  for  years  be- 
fore hostilities  began. 

My  purpose  hi  writing  this  present  book  is  to 
show  that  the  German  invasion  was  not  limited 
to  the  United  States,  that  the  Boche  insidious  con- 
spiracies are  and  were  always  built  up  in  all  the 
countries  of  the  earth;  that  in  these  conspiracies 
a  constant  use  is  made  of  the  internal  strifes  about 
purely  domestic  affairs  in  order  to  prepare  the 
ways  of  German  military  aggressions. 

In  the  diplomatic  laboratories  of  the  Wilhelm- 
strasse,  the  political  opinions,  religious  divergen- 
cies, economic  conflicts  of  the  various  nations 

vii 


vin  Preface 

have  been  for  many  years  carefully  analyzed  and 
systematically  combined  for  the  military  use  of 
Germany,  just  as  in  the  chemical  laboratories  of 
the  General  Staff  the  various  hydrocarbides  have 
been  carefully  analyzed  and  systematically  com- 
bined with  oxygen  and  nitrogen  for  the  same  mili- 
tary use  of  Germany. 

The  moral  poisoned  gases  of  the  diplomatic 
laboratories  have  not  been  less  efficient,  nor  less 
dangerous  for  Germany's  victims,  than  the  physi- 
cal ones  of  her  chemical  laboratories. 

I  am  going  to  expose  to  light  a  sector  of  this 
universal  Boche  system  for  utilizing  the  internal 
political  passions  of  the  various  nations,  in  the 
interest  of  the  German  plans  of  aggression  and 
conquest. 

I  hope  in  doing  this  to  call  the  vigilance  of  these 
various  nations  to  the  dangers  of  such  German 
conspiracies  in  the  future. 

It  would  be  the  greatest  folly  to  think  that  an 
apparent  change  of  government  in  Berlin  really 
means  the  cessation  of  these  dastardly  plots. 
They  form  part  of  Prussia's  policy  since  centuries; 
they  will  not  be  abandoned  for  what  is  thought  by 
her  to  be  a  temporary  reverse;  they  are  in  progress 
to-day  and  they  will  be  in  progress  to-morrow 


Preface  ix 

eveiy where,  just  with  the  same  activity  and  brazen 
perfidy  as  they  were  before  and  during  the  World 
War.  Is  it  not  a  sufficient  demonstration  of  that 
statement  to  show  Bernstorff,  the  Boche  arch  con- 
spirator and  German  Ambassador  in  the  United 
States  during  the  war,  placed,  after  the  so-called 
German  revolution,  in  a  leading  and  preponderant 
situation  at  the  German  Foreign  Office  in  Berlin? 

I  also  hope,  in  publishing  these  extracts  of  the 
notes  taken  during  my  life's  activities,  to  show  to 
Colombia  that  the  Boche  conspiracies  were  the  real 
origin  of  her  sufferings  in  the  Panama  question; 
that  Germany  had  succeeded  in  making  her  the 
catspaw  during  the  Boche  attempts  to  treacher- 
ously acquire  the  political  and  economical  control 
of  the  great  highway  between  the  Atlantic  and  the 
Pacific. 

I  hope  that  it  will  be  the  origin  of  a  reaction  in 
the  Colombian  mind  and  that  Bogota  will  at  last 
find  out  who  has  been  her  arch  enemy,  Germany, 
and  who  has  always  been  her  sincere  friend,  the 
United  States.  If  Colombia  was  to  be  finally 
brought  to  stigmatize  as  traitors  the  Boche  in- 
triguers who  have  led  her  blindly  to  obstruct  the 
generous  and  civilizing  undertaking  of  the  United 


x  Preface 

States  at  Panama,  it  would  be  the  most  felicitous 
event  for  the  moral  peace  of  this  hemisphere. 

If  Colombia  could  extend  loyally  her  hand  to 
the  United  States  and  to  Panama  and  renew  the 
cordial  relations  of  old  days,  without  accepting  a 
sum  of  money  which  it  does  not  behoove  her  dig- 
nity to  receive,  this  would  be  the  beginning  of  a 
new  era  in  Central  America. 

The  capital  and  energy  of  American  enterprise 
would  soon  develop  in  Colombia  the  hidden  wealth 
of  her  gifted  territory,  and  give  a  hundred  times 
more  than  the  amount  of  an  unjustified  indemnity 
for  the  secession  of  Panama. 

The  writer  of  this  book,  who  never  ceased  to  be 
a  sincere  friend  of  Colombia,  though  having 
openly  helped,  as  was  his  duty,  the  legitimate  re- 
bellion of  Panama  against  Colombia,  would  greet 
with  intense  joy  such  a  reconciliation.  It  would 
be  permanent  and  stable  because  it  would  not  be 
based  on  the  grant  of  a  sum  of  money  which,  in  the 
future  action  of  the  Boche  at  Bogota,  would  form 
a  solid  base  for  renewed  calumnies  against  the 
United  States. 

The  Colombian  statesmen  who  have  served  an 
anti-American  policy  in  the  Panama  affair,  when 
they  believed  sincerely  that  policy  to  be  inspired 


Preface  xi 

by  the  most  patriotic  principles,  owe  to  their  coun- 
try and  to  the  world  to  condemn  it  now  that  it  is 
demonstrated  to  have  been  "made  in  Germany," 
for  the  preparation  of  the  greatest  crime  against 
Humanity. 

In  acknowledging  the  error  of  the  past  and  in 
opening  the  highway  for  inter- American  friendship 
in  the  future,  they  will  well  serve  the  moral  and 
substantial  interests  of  their  noble  and  beautiful 
country. 

No  doubt  shall  remain,  in  the  mind  of  a  disin- 
terested reader,  about  the  criminal  conspiracies 
grafted  by  Germany  on  the  financial  and  political 
questions  raised  by  the  Panama  Canal  enterprise, 
both  against  France  and  the  United  States. 

No  doubt  shall  remain  either  about  the  fatal  in- 
fluence these  conspiracies  would  have  had  on  the 
end  of  the  World  War  if  they  had  not  been  strenu- 
ously fought. 

The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama,  which  is  the 
history  of  the  struggle  for  the  triumph  of  the 
French  Panama  Canal  idea,  is  also  that  of  the  ef- 
forts to  checkmate  these  conspiracies.  It  is,  there- 
fore, intimately  linked  with  the  glorious  war  of 
1914-1919. 


xii  Preface 

It  forms  its  antechamber,  as  the  boche-inspired 
Mexican  Adventure  of  Napoleon  the  Third  formed 
the  ante-chamber  of  the  disastrous  war  of  1870-71. 

To  understand  well  the  bearing  which  the  great 
Adventure  of  Panama  had  on  the  final  defeat  of 
Germany,  it  is  necessary  to  examine  first,  minutely, 
what  weapons  Germany  had  prepared  to  assault 
France,  and  what  weapons  France  had  prepared 
to  preserve  her  liberty  and  integrity. 

It  is  also  necessary  to  examine,  minutely,  the 
main  factors  which  decided  the  victory  of  civiliza- 
tion. 

The  first  chapters  of  this  book  deal  almost  ex- 
clusively with  these  preponderant  factors  of  the 
great  victory.  They  also  show  the  always-men- 
acing "  Occult  Power  of  Germany."  This  obvious 
danger  demonstrates  the  necessity  of  organizing 
to-morrow  a  powerful  barrier  against  the  re- 
currence of  German  crimes:  the  intimate  de- 
fensive union  of  the  three  great  western  democra- 
cies, the  United  States,  Great  Britain,  and  France. 

PHILIPPE  BUNAU-VARILLA. 
November,  1919. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

PAGE 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  TOOLS  OF  VICTORY 


CHAPTER  II 17 

THE  ENCIRCLEMENT  OF  GERMANY'S  ENEMIES  BY 
THE  DYE  INDUSTRY 

CHAPTER  III 24 

PANAMA  AND  THE  INFLUENCE  OF  AMERICA 

CHAPTER  IV ;      35 

THE  OCCULT  POWER  OF  GERMANY 

CHAPTER  V  • .    v    |   <     ;  /  .     .     .     *       49 

THE  BOCHE  CONSPIRACY  IN  MEXICO  (1861-63) 

PREPARING  THE  PROVOCATION  OF  1870 

CHAPTER  VI '•••";. .  ;.     .     .      60 

THE  BOCHE  CONSPIRACY  IN  FRANCE,  (1888-92),  TO 

WRECK  THE  PANAMA  CANAL,  IN  ORDER  TO  CREATE 

THE  DEPRESSED  STATE  OF  MIND  NECESSARY  FOR 

THE  PREMEDITATED  AGGRESSION 

xiii 


xiv  Table  of  Contents 


PAGE 


CHAPTER  VII 81 

CAMPAIGN  IN  AMERICA  AGAINST  THE  NICARAGUA 
CANAL    TO  COUNTERCHECK    THE    BOCHE    CON- 
SPIRACY TO  ANNIHILATE  THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

CHAPTER  VIII    ........     104 

AMERICAN    CONGRESS    BETWEEN   PANAMA   AND 
NICARAGUA 

CHAPTER  IX. 115 

THE  BOCHE  INTRIGUES  IN  BOGOTA  IN  1902  TO 

PREVENT   THE   ADOPTION   OF   PANAMA   BY    THE 

UNITED  STATES 

CHAPTER  X 143 

VARIOUS  TRACES  OF  BOCHE  INTRIGUE  IN  BOGOTA 
FOR  DEFEATING  IN  1903  THE  ADOPTION  OF  THE 
PANAMA  CANAL  BY  THE  UNITED  STATES  AFTER 
SHE  HAD  RESOLVED  TO  Do  so  AND  SIGNED  THE 
HAY-HERRAN  TREATY 

CHAPTER  XI 154 

PRESIDENT  ROOSEVELT'S  TESTIMONY  RELATIVE  TO 
THE  BREAKDOWN — THANKS  TO  A  VERBAL  ULTI- 
MATUM TO  GERMANY  AT  THE  END  OF  1902 — OF 
THE  BOCHE-CAMOUFLAGED  NAVAL  AND  DIPLO- 
MATIC OPERATIONS  TO  OBTAIN  ON  THE  VENE- 
ZUELAN SHORES  A  MILITARY  BASE  COMMANDING 
THE  PANAMA  CANAL 


Table  of  Contents  xv 

PAGE 

CHAPTER  XII 160 

THE  AUTHOR'S  TESTIMONY  CONCERNING  THE 
BREAKDOWN — THANKS  TO  THE  PANAMA  REVOLU- 
TION, IN  NOVEMBER,  1903 — OP  THE  CONCEALED 
BOCHE  DIPLOMATIC  OPERATIONS  TO  OBTAIN  FROM 
COLOMBIA:  FIRST,  THE  REJECTION  OF  ANY  TREATY 
WITH  THE  UNITED  STATES;  SECOND,  THE  CONFISCA- 
TION IN  THE  AUTUMN  OF  1904  OF  THE  FRENCH 
PANAMA  CANAL  COMPANY'S  PROPERTIES  AND  CON- 
CESSIONS; THIRD,  THE  TRANSFER  OF  THESE 
PROPERTIES  AND  CONCESSIONS  TO  THE  GERMAN 
GOVERNMENT  MASQUERADING  UNDER  THE  DIS- 
GUISE OF  A  "STRICTLY  COLOMBIAN  CORPORATION" 

CHAPTER  XIII 260 

CONCLUSION 


THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 
OF  PANAMA 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

CHAPTER  I 

The  Tools  of  Victory 

OF  COURSE  most  people  will  think  that  the  main 
cause  of  the  Allies'  victory  was  the  heroism  dis- 
played by  their  troops  on  French  soil.  Others  will 
put  on  the  same  plane  the  elastic  plasticity  of 
America,  England,  and  France  promptly  adapt- 
ing their  physical  and  spiritual  resources  to  the 
unexpected  necessities  of  the  war.  It  goes  with- 

(out  saying  that  these  two  great  moral  and  intellec- 
tual factors  played  the  master  part  in  the  drama. 
But,  alone,  they  would  have  been  insufficient. 
Outside  of  heroism  Victory  needed  certain  tools 
without  which  the  most  admirable  outbursts  of 
patriotism  and  of  the  spirit  of  sacrifice  would  have 
been  in  vain. 

We  are  living  in  a  mechanical  age  in  which  the 
inventions  of  the  engineer  enormously  extend  the 
scope  of  man's  action.  However  great  and  noble 

3 


\  Adventure  of  Panama 

may  be  the  share  of  the  soldier's  spirit  in  the  result 
of  the  battle,  it  may  be  stated  that  it  is  only  a  small 
fraction  of  the  part  played  by  certain  mechan- 
isms, by  what  may  be  termed  the  "Tools  of 
Victory." 

THE     "75"     WHIPS     THE    GEKMAN    MACHINE     GUN 

The  principal  tool  that  the  Prussians  had  pre- 
pared to  finish  in  1914  the  conquest  of  Europe, 
which  they  had  begun  in  1619,  was  the  machine 
gun.  To  this  deadly  weapon  they  had  assigned 
the  task  of  wiping  out  the  unprepared  French  le- 
gions. They  relied  on  it  to  open  to  the  triumphant 
Kaiser  the  highroad  nach  Paris,  within  a  couple  of 
weeks  from  the  opening  of  hostilities. 

The  first  clash  between  German  and  French 
troops  entirely  justified  the  hopes  laid  on  the  ma- 
chine guns.  In  Alsace,  in  Lorraine,  in  Belgium — 
at  Charleroi  and  at  Mons — the  French  regiments 
were  mown  down  as  hay  by  a  mowing  machine. 
The  perfection  of  the  new  weapon  was  equal  to  the 
perfection  of  the  method  with  which  it  was  em- 
ployed in  order  to  obtain  the  highest  efficiency. 
On  certain  battlefields  one  could  see  dead  French 
soldiers  fallen  in  regular  alignments,  to  all  appear- 
ance as  if  lying  down  ready  to  spring  to  their  feet 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama         5 

and  storm  the  enemy's  lines.  Prussia  had  the 
machine  gun  ready  for  her  aggression  of  1914, 
as  she  had  the  needle-gun  ready  for  her  aggres- 
sions of  1866  and  1870.  But  on  the  other  side 
France  had  prepared  a  magnificent  weapon  of 
defence,  the  famous  "75"  gun,  the  saviour  of 
humanity. 

The  military  genius  of  Joffre  inspired  him  to 
retire  toward  the  Marne  after  the  defeat  of  Char- 
leroi,  which  was  entirely  due  to  the  German  ma- 
chine gun.  He  withdrew  the  whole  French  army 
from  contact  with  the  deadly  new  weapon,  and 
brought  it  back  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles. 
He  had  resolved  to  meet  the  enemy  in  the  valley  of 
the  Seine  with  an  adequate  volley  of  "75"  shells. 

During  the  progress  of  this  monumental  move- 
ment, however,  he  modified  this  decision.  He 
decided  to  stop  the  Boche  before  he  should  reach 
the  valley  of  the  Seine  and  to  throw  him  back 
when  passing  the  plateaux  between  the  Marne 
and  the  Seine.  There,  on  a  gigantic  front  such 
as  never  had  been  seen  before  in  any  war,  took 
place  the  historic  duel  between  the  German  ma- 
chine gun  and  the  French  "75." 

The  French  "75"  won;  the  machine  gun  was 
thoroughly  beaten.  The  German  hordes  were 


6          The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

thrown  back — not  in  one  point  but  on  all  points: 
(a)  east  of  Meaux,  between  the  Marne  and  the 
Ourcq,  by  General  Maunoury;  (6)  at  Fere  Cham- 
penoise,  between  the  Marne  and  the  Seine,  by 
General  Foch;  (c)  at  Verdun,  by  General  Sarrail; 
(d)  at  Nancy,  by  General  de  Castelnau. 

The  "75"  was  everywhere  triumphant.  .  It  saved 
France;  it  saved  civilization.  It  had  beaten  and 
repulsed  the  most  famous  German  divisions, 
whipped  the  most  illustrious  German  generals. 
It  forced  the  Chief  of  the  Imperial  Staff,  Von 
Moltke,  to  exclaim  to  his  master  these  fateful 
words:  "Majesty,  the  war  is  lost!" 

French  heroism  had  obeyed  Joffre's  celebrated 
order  of  the  sixth  of  September,  1914: 

At  the  moment  when  a  battle  is  engaged  on  the  re- 
sult of  which  rests  the  life  of  our  country,  it  is  im- 
portant to  remind  all  that  it  is  no  longer  time  to  look 
behind. 

All  efforts  must  be  employed  to  attack  and  drive 
back  the  enemy.  A  force  which  cannot  advance  any 
farther  shall,  no  matter  at  what  cost,  retain  the  con- 
quered ground  and  be  killed  on  tlie  spot  rather  than 
to  fall  back. 

If  every  French  soldier  was  not  killed  at  his  post; 
if,  on  the  contrary,  death  mowed  down  the  Ger- 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama          7 

mans  and  forced  them  to  look  behind,  it  was  due 
to  the  "75."  To  this  magnificent  creation  of 
French  mechanical  genius  must  go  out  the  grati- 
tude of  the  world.  It  was  the  great  tool  of  the 
Victory  in  the  First  Battle  of  the  Marne,  the 
glorious  mechanism  that  drove  back  the  Boche 
from  Meaux  to  Nancy  in  1914.  It  was  the  great 
tool  of  Victory  which  held  the  Boche  at  bay  before 
Verdun  in  1916,  before  Amiens  in  1918.  It  was 
the  famous  gun  which  finally  drove  back  into  Ger- 
many, broken  and  disrupted,  the  plague  army 
which  in  1914  had  triumphantly  violated  the 
"scrap  of  paper,"  the  very  object  of  which  had 
been  the  protection  of  Belgium  by  Germany. 

HOW  FRANCE  ACQUIRED  THE  "75" 

Toward  the  end  of  the  decade  following  the  war 
of  1870-71,  French  genius  effected  a  radical  trans- 
formation in  the  military  value  of  the  artillery. 
Turpin  discovered  melinite,  the  high  explosive 
which  was  sufficiently  stable  to  be  employed  in  a 
shell.  The  high  explosives  hitherto  known,  such 
as  dynamite,  would  have  exploded  in  the  gun, 
owing  to  the  jerk  caused  by  the  impulsion  trans- 
mitted by  the  combustion  of  the  powder. 

Turpin  discovered  that  picric  acid,  otherwise 


8          The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

termed  melinite,  was  the  ideal  body.  Its  force 
at  the  moment  of  explosion  equalled  that  of  dyna- 
mite and  its  stability  was  such  that  it  remained 
unchanged  during  the  critical  instant  of  its  passage 
through  the  gun.  It  was  found,  too,  that  melinite 
could  be  handled  with  perfect  security.  No  risk 
attended  the  filling  of  the  shells  which,  when  fired, 
acquired  almost  instantaneously  a  muzzle  velocity 
of  3,000  feet  per  second.  Turpin  had  solved  the 
great  military  problem  of  showering  on  the  enemy, 
by  gunfire,  unlimited  quantities  of  high  explosives 
enclosed  in  shells. 

But  another  great  problem  remained  to  be 
solved. 

Artillery  without  accuracy  is  the  greatest  of  de- 
lusions. To  accomplish  a  military  result,  to  stop 
the  advance  of  enemy  troops,  artillery  must  spray 
them,  and  the  ground  ahead  of  them,  with  shells. 
But  these  shells  must  spread  death  and  terror  not 
only  by  their  explosion,  but  also  by  the  rapidity 
and  accuracy  of  their  fall.  And  to  discover  a 
means  to  ensure  such  accuracy  and  rapidity  of  fire 
was  the  problem  still  to  be  solved. 

Prior  to  1890  all  guns  were  entirely  displaced 
by  the  recoil.  They  had  to  be  put  back  again  in 
approximately  the  same  place  after  each  shot,  and 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama          9 

this  necessitated  a  series  of  movements  that  had 
to  be  effected  by  the  gunners.  It  is  hardly  neces- 
sary to  say  that,  even  during  peace  manoeuvres, 
a  gun  could  never  be  replaced  precisely  in  its 
previous  position;  but  that,  during  a  battle,  under 
the  enemy's  fire,  such  an  operation  was  always  a 
pure  chimera. 

Toward  the  end  of  the  second  decade  following 
the  war  of  1870-71  various  artillery  staffs  began  to 
study  the  great  problem  of  devising  an  automatic 
return  of  the  gun  to  its  original  position  after  firing. 
The  principle  to  be  resorted  to  was  soon  devised. 
The  solution  consisted  in  establishing,  between  the 
gun  proper  and  its  carriage,  as  intermediary,  an 
elastic  appliance — a  sort  of  shock  absorber.  This 
elastic  system  was  to  store,  while  bringing  the  gun 
to  a  standstill,  the  momentum  of  the  gun  during 
its  recoil.  The  automatic  return  of  the  gun  to  its 
original  position,  thanks  to  the  elasticity  of  the 
recoil  absorber,  naturally  followed.  It  was  a 
simple  restitution  of  a  part  of  the  energy  absorbed 
during  the  recoil,  the  remainder  of  the  energy  being 
expended  in  heat  and  friction. 

This  could  be  arrived  at  either  by  the  employ- 
ment of  springs,  or  by  a  system  consisting  of  a 
combination  of  air  and  of  a  fluid  matter  such  as 


10        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

water.  It  was  the  system  known  by  the  name  of 
"  hydro-pneumatic  brake." 

In  either  case  the  carriage,  which  was  to  be 
anchored  to  the  ground  by  a  spade  driven  into  it, 
was  to  remain  immovable  during  the  firing. 

The  spring  system,  being  the  simplest,  was 
easier  to  devise  and  construct  but  was  also  a  very 
inferior  solution.  The  absorption  of  the  momen- 
tum of  the  recoiling  gun  could  not  be  effected  so  as 
entirely  to  avoid  jerks — and,  consequently,  the 
slight  displacement  of  the  carriage  and  of  the  gun.* 

The  combination  of  air  and  water — the  so-called 
hydro-pneumatic  brake — on  the  contrary,  was  a 
much  more  satisfactory  invention.  But  there  were, 
on  the  other  hand,  great  practical  drawbacks  in 
its  construction  and  operation.  The  Krupp's 
works  at  Essen  initiated  the  experiments  but,  after 
many  efforts,  found  it  impracticable  and  rejected 
this  device. 

French  artillery  officers,  however,  under  the  di- 
rection of  Colonel  Deport,  conducted  experiments 
along  similar  lines,  and  succeeded  admirably. 


*In  fact,  to  obtain  the  desired  result  it  was  necessary  both  (a)  to  transform  into  heat 
by  the  use  of  brakes  a  part  of  the  energy  of  the  gun  during  its  recoil,  and  (b>  to  absorb 
by  an  elastic  appliance  the  rest  of  that  energy. 

The  use  of  springs  allowed  only  for  the  storage  of  energy  but  not  for  the  elimination 
of  a  part  of  the  momentum  by  the  action  of  the  brake. 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama        11 

They  evolved  slowly  but  surely  the  marvellous 
weapon  which  was  to  save  France  and  the  world 
from  the  horrible  yoke  of  brutal  Prussian  tyranny. 
When  the  gun  was  ready  the  question  was: 
How  will  it  be  put  in  use  in  the  French  army? 

HOW    PRESIDENT    FAURE    SAVED    FRANCE,    THANKS 
TO   THE   "75" 

The  expense  involved  for  equipping  the  artillery 
with  the  new  field  gun  was  about  $100,000,000.  To 
spend  such  a  sum,  or  even  a  much  smaller  amount, 
it  was  necessary  to  open  a  debate  in  the  House  and 
in  the  Senate  in  order  to  get  the  credits.  Such  a 
debate  could  not  but  expose  to  world-wide  pub- 
licity the  masterpiece  evolved  in  the  laboratories 
of  the  French  Ordnance  Department.  To  obey 
the  precepts  of  the  Constitution  would  have  been 
to  place  in  jeopardy  the  very  life  of  the  nation. 

At  that  time  the  head  of  the  French  Govern- 
ment was  not — as  is  almost  invariably  the  case — 
a  lawyer.  He  was  a  merchant,  a  business  man, 
the  head  of  a  firm  dealing  in  leather;  he  was  Presi- 
dent Felix  Faure. 

If  the  head  of  the  State  had  been  a  lawyer  he 
would  certainly  have  been  dominated  by  respect 
for  the  majesty  of  constitutional  law.  He  would 


K>        The  Oreat  Adventure  of  Panama 

have  requested  the  Parliament  to  vote  a  statute 
authorizing  the  new  artillery  and  to  open  the 
corresponding  credits.  His  professional  ethics 
would  not  have  allowed  him  even  to  consider  any 
other  solution. 

But  Felix  Faure's  professional  conscience  did 
not  conceal  from  his  eyes,  behind  the  majestic 
garb  of  the  Law,  the  exceptional  and  high  respon- 
sibility thrown  upon  him  by  circumstances.  To 
preserve  France  he  violated  the  constitutional 
law.  To  save  France  he  broke  his  primary  and 
essential  obligation  to  protect  the  Constitution 
and  to  enforce  its  laws.  And  Felix  Faure  thus 
accomplished  the  act  which,  a  quarter  of  a  century 
later,  saved  France  and  the  world. 

No  man  deserves  a  greater  tribute  of  gratitude 
from  humanity  than  this  one-time  obscure  mer- 
chant. The  accidents  of  politics  brought  him  to 
the  highest  office  of  France.  His  term  of  office 
at  the  Elysee  was  not  conspicuous  except  for  this 
single  remarkable  and  extraordinary  act.  He 
violated  his  oath  of  ottkv  in  order  to  endow  France 
with  the  weapon  which  later  permitted  her  to 
beat  back  the  German  aggressor.  Without  that 
weapon — or  with  a  Germany  possessing  an  identi- 
cal one — France  and  the  world  would  have 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama        13 

become  the  martyred  slave  of  the  Teutonic 
Knights. 

In  order  to  safeguard  his  honour  F£lix  Faure 
took  as  witnesses  of  his  action  the  members  of  the 
Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  of  the  House.  He 
summoned  them  to  the  Elyseo  and  bound  them 
by  oath  not  to  reveal  to  any  one  what  was  going  to 
happen.  He  then  unfolded  before  his  astonished 
audience  his  determination  to  spend  one  hundred 
million  dollars  of  the  public  money  without  any 
authorization  of  the  Parliament.  Thus,  without 
attracting  the  enemy's  attention,  was  France  en- 
sured the  creation  of  that  precious  artillery  which 
was  eventually  to  be  the  safeguard  of  civilization. 
It  may  be  added,  to  the  honour  of  the  members  of 
the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means,  that  the  secret 
was  scrupulously  kept,  and  only  leaked  out  many 
years  later — when  the  "75"  was  accomplishing  its 
providential  task. 

The  necessity  to  keep  absolutely  secret  the  de- 
cision to  transform  our  field  artillery  is  obvious, 
in  view  of  the  following  facts : 

1.  Germany,  a  few  years  before,  had  recon- 
structed all  her  field  artillery  and  created  the  77- 
millimetre  gun.  It  was  mounted  on  the  ordinary 
rigid  carriage  of  old  days. 


14        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

2.  The  studies  made  in  France  and  in  Germany 
to  obtain  the  elastic  intermediary  between  the  gun 
proper  and  the  carriage  could  lead  either  to  the 
inferior  (but  more  simple)  method  of  using  steel 
recoil  springs,  or  to  the  superior  (and  perfect) 
method  of  the  hydro-pneumatic  brakes. 

3.  As  we  know,  the  tentative  application  of  the 
second  method  had  failed  at  Essen  but  later  suc- 
ceeded in  the  French  arsenals. 

4.  The  public  discussion  of  the  credits  necessary 
for  the  new  guns  would  certainly  have  shown  to 
our  enemies  our  technical  success  in  the  solution 
of  the  problem.     It  would  have  whipped  their 
vanity. 

5.  They  would  have  made  new  experiments  and 
possibly   succeeded   where   previously   they   had 
failed.     Following  in  our  footsteps  they  would 
have  remade  all  their  field  artillery  and  acquired  a 
position  of  equality  with  the  French  army  on  this 
vital  point. 

The  strict  secrecy  with  which  the  "75"  was 
adopted  concealed  the  situation  for  a  long  time 
from  the  German  eyes. 

Simultaneously  a  very  clever  ruse  de  guerre  was 
carried  out  in  order  entirely  to  mislead  the  con- 
stantly spying  Boche. 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama        15 

A  gun  of  our  then-existing  field  artillery — a 
90-millimetre  calibre  with  rigid  carriage — was 
transformed  into  a  new  type  provided  with  steel 
recoil  springs.  It  was  the  inferior  system  France 
wished  Germany  to  adopt  for  her  "77"  field 
gun.  The  transformed  field  gun  was  carefully 
packed,  covered  with  two  successive  strata  of 
planks  and  cloth,  all  carefully  sealed,  and  then 
shipped  to  the  direction  of  the  artillery  at  Nancy, 
France. 

During  the  night  a  German  spy,  conveniently 
and  properly  misled  by  clever  agents  of  our 
counter-espionage,  attached  the  car  to  a  train 
leaving  Nancy  for  Metz.  The  car  and  its  sup- 
posedly precious  contents  never  were  returned  and 
some  weeks  later  it  became  known  that  Germany 
had  decided  to  transform  her  "77"  field  gun  with 
the  simple  system  of  steel  recoil  springs. 

The  shark  had  swallowed  the  bait! 

This  is  how,  about  a  quarter  of  a  century  in 
advance,  the  result  of  the  great  war  was  predeter- 
mined! Thus  France  got  her  marvellous  weapon 
the  "75". 

We  shall  speak  later  on  of  another  creation  of 
the  French  genius,  the  Panama  Canal.  It  was 
begun  approximately  ten  years  before  the  "75" 


16        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

began  to  be  studied.  It  had  a  vital  part  in  de- 
veloping the  political  conditions  which  made  it 
possible  to  feed  the  "75"  hi  powder  and  in  high 
explosive  shells. 

This  is  how  France  was  saved  from  the  impend- 
ing disaster  of  a  German  onrush. 

This  also  explains  how  Germany,  abused  by  her 
own  method  of  espionage,  was  cleverly  enticed  to 
adopt  the  secondary,  the  faulty  method. 


CHAPTER  II 

The    encirclement   of  Germany's    enemies    by   the   dye 
industry 

THE  romantic  story  of  the  adoption  of  the 
hydro-pneumatic  brake  for  the  "75"  by  France, 
and  of  the  steel  spring  for  the  "77"  by  Germany  is 
typically  French.  Resourcefulness,  quickness  of 
decision,  scientific  spirit,  cleverness  of  action, 
devotion  to  duty  in  the  highest  sense  of  the 
word,  all  that  is  to  be  found  in  the  preceding  lines. 

In  those  that  follow  we  shall  see,  on  the  opposite, 
the  French  faults.  The  incredible  blindness  of  her 
administration,  the  complete  lack  of  method,  of 
system,  and  of  initiative  in  a  question  of  such 
capital  importance  is  simply  amazing.  All  the 
advance  which  the  French  genius,  the  spirit  of  self- 
sacrifice  of  her  first  magistrate  had  given  her,  was 
almost  reduced  to  naught  by  the  incredible  tor- 
pidity of  her  government. 

We  have  seen  that  the  invention  of  Turpin  had 
made  it  possible  to  fill  the  shells  of  the  "75" 

17 


18        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

with  a  high  explosive,  melinite.  France  owed  to 
the  irradiating  brains  of  her  sons  the  possession 
of  the  best  field  gun  and  the  best  shell.  She  en- 
tered the  war,  which  was  unchained  in  1914  by  the 
criminal  ambition  of  the  Teutonic  Knights,  with 
about  4,000  "75"  guns.  She  had  some  ammunition 
to  begin  with,  but  for  the  all-important  melinite 
she  had  to  get  the  greater  part  of  her  new  supplies 
from  sources  outside  of  France.  It  may  seem  be- 
yond belief,  but  this  source  was — Germany! 

This  seems  incredible,  but  it  is  a  fact! 

The  blindness  of  the  French  Administration, 
the  deceiving  songs  of  the  pacifists  as  to  the  im- 
possibility of  a  European  war,  had  gradually  led 
France  to  get  engulfed  in  the  methodic  and  devilish 
entanglement  of  the  German  dyestuff  industry. 

HYPOCRISY  OF  THE  PEACEFUL  DYE  INDUSTRY 

The  terrible  situation  in  which  France,  as  well  as 
Great  Britain  and  Russia,  was  placed  by  the  lack 
of  ammunitions  after  the  earlier  battles  of  the  war 
is  explained  thus: 

"Who  makes  dyes  to-day  can  to-morrow  make 
high  explosives — with  the  same  men,  with  the 
same  plant,  with  the  same  materials,  provided  he 
disposes  also  of  oxidized  nitrogen." 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama        19 

The  dye  industry  and  the  high-explosive  industry 
are  so  intimately  connected  as  to  be  virtually  one. 
In  fact,  melinite  and  trinitrotoluene  are  nothing  but 
hydrocarbides,  extracted  from  distilled  coal  tar,  in 
which  is  incorporated  oxidized  nitrogen. 

Germany  had  established  all  over  the  world  the 
monopoly  of  her  apparently  innocent  dye  industry. 
It  was  the  scientific  noose  which  was  going  to 
strangle  all  her  enemies  after  the  first  months  of 
war  owing  to  the  famine  of  explosives. 

The  vile  methods  of  warfare  admirably  con- 
densed by  the  celebrated  Count  Luxburg,  the 
minister  of  Germany  to  Argentina — suggesting 
neutral  ships  should  be  sunk  "without  leaving 
traces" — were  also  followed  in  peace.  The  same 
men  who  enjoyed  the  hospitality  of  the  United 
States,  while  depositing  bombs  with  time  fuses  in 
the  ships  leaving  the  American  wharves,  were 
active  during  peace  times  also. 

The  dye  industry  being  for  everybody,  except 
Germany,  a  peaceful  one,  and,  for  Germany  only,  a 
war  industry,  it  was  protected  against  competition 
by  German  war  methods. 

Whenever  a  non-German  dye  appeared  either  in 
France,  Great  Britain  or  America,  immediately 
it  was  stifled  under  an  avalanche  of  German  goods. 


20        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

If,  however,  the  competitor  resisted  the  business 
pressure  he  was  soon  put  out  of  commission  by 
purely  Boche  trickery. 

Suitable  additions  of  nocuous  substances  were 
made  by  criminal  hands  in  the  mills  of  the  users  of 
non-German  dyes.  Everybody  was  soon  con- 
vinced that  non-German  dyes  did  not  possess  the 
standard  qualities  necessary  for  their  industrial 
use.  By  this  double  method  in  time  of  peace — 
dumping  and  sabotage — the  Boche  acquired  the 
practical  monopoly  of  the  dye  industry.  Free- 
trade  nations  were  glad  of  it.  The  innocent 
economists  and  the  candid  pacifists  were  con- 
veniently misled  while  in  fact  the  monopoly  of 
the  dye  industry  constituted  the  control  of  ex- 
plosives by  Prussia.  She  alone  was  capable  of 
making  the  explosives  on  a  large  scale,  when  she 
should  decide  to  let  loose  her  dogs  of  war  and  to 
complete  the  task  which  she  had  begun  in  1619. 
This  monopoly  was  to  ensure  her  conquest  of  the 
world. 

Everybody  remembers  the  universal  complaints 
about  the  absence  of  dyes  when  the  war  was  de- 
clared by  Germany.  Nobody,  of  course,  remem- 
bers any  complaint  about  the  absence  of  explosives. 
It  was,  however,  the  very  same  question.  The 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama        21 

manufacture  of  dyes  was  the  manufacture  of 
explosives.  The  various  nations  abstained,  nat- 
urally, from  exposing  their  incredible  blindness  and 
the  almost  criminal  neglect  of  their  governments 
in  not  having  taken,  during  peace,  adequate  pro- 
tective measures.  Their  stock  of  material  for 
providing  their  artillery  with  high-explosive  shells 
was  practically  just  sufficient  for  the  first  weeks  of 
the  war. 

Germany  alone  was  capable  of  the  industrial 
effort  necessary  to  furnish  the  large  masses  of 
explosives  required  for  the  war.  She  had  of  the 
plant,  she  had  of  the  personnel,  she  had  of  the  raw 
material. 

GERMANY'S  DOMESTIC  NITRATE  SUPPLY 

She  had  also  succeeded  in  freeing  herself  from 
the  necessity  of  importing  nitrates  from  Chili. 
Chili,  on  the  contrary,  was  the  only  source  open 
to  Germany's  blind  enemies  for  obtaining  the  oxi- 
dized nitrogen  which  is  the  essential  element  of 
high  explosive,  or  of  gunpowder. 

Thanks  to  supreme  technical  efforts  she  had 
succeeded  in  devising  the  proper  scientific  and 
industrial  methods  to  extract  from  the  atmosphere 
the  oxidized  nitrogen  necessary  for  the  manufac- 


22        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

i 

ture  of  her  explosives.  It  is  safe  to  say  that 
Germany  alone  among  the  nations  at  war  could 
produce  an  unlimited  quantity  of  explosives  on 
her  own  soil  and  with  products  generated  within 
her  own  frontiers.  It  may  be  added  that  her 
enemies  would  have  been  crushed  in  a  few  months 
under  the  strategic  superiority  resulting  from  such 
a  monopoly  if,  thanks  to  the  political  conditions 
due  to  the  Panama  enterprise,  they  had  not  found 
an  extended  and  helping  hand  in  the  United 
States.* 

France  had  no  chemical  factory  capable  of  pro- 
viding what  she  needed  to  load  her  shells  except  in 
an  insignificant  proportion.  She  was,  on  the  other 
hand,  depending  exclusively  on  the  transportation 
to  her  harbours  of  the  Chilean  nitrates  to  obtain 
the  indispensable  oxidized  nitrogen  to  make  ex- 
plosives at  home.  The  negligence  of  her  govern- 
mental administration  had  condemned  France  to 


*Some  time  after  this  was  written  the  Daily  Mail  (Paris  edition)  published  on  the 
20th  of  August,  1919,  the  following:  "Germany  has  solved  the  problem  of  the  fixation 
of  nitrogen  as  a  commercial  undertaking  on  a  gigantic  scale.  In  future  from  the 
point  of  agricultural  fertilizers  she  is  independent  of  any  blockade.  Furthermore, 
the  plant  used  in  the  process  can  be  turned  at  the  shortest  notice  to  the  manufacture 
of  high  explosives." 

The  above  is  the  substance  of  a  statement  made  to  the  Times  on  Monday  by  Dr. 
Edward  C.  Worden,  the  explosives  chemical  expert  of  the  United  States,  Bureau  of 
Aircraft  Production,  Washington,  who  has  just  returned  to  London  from  a  tour  of 
inspection  of  the  chemical  industry  of  Germany. 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama        %3 

an  immediate  lack  of  explosives  a  few  weeks  after 
the  declaration  of  war. 

The  same  remarks  apply  to  Great  Britain. 

If  the  artfully  engineered  explosives  famine  in 
France,  Great  Britain,  America,  and  Russia  did  not 
suffice  to  ensure  Germany's  triumph,  even  after  her 
defeat  at  the  Marne,  humanity  owes  it  entirely 
to  the  United  States. 


CHAPTER  III 

Panama  and  the  influence  of  America 

IT  WAS  America's  magnificent  industrial  power 
that  broke  the  ring  closed  by  Germany  and  helped 
France  and  Great  Britain  out  of  their  almost 
desperate  situation. 

Long  before  America  drew  her  sword  she  had 
cooperated  with  the  Allies  in  providing  them  with 
the  most  essential  elements  of  the  actual  war: 
powder  and  explosives.  This  explains  the  des- 
perate efforts  made  by  Germany  to  induce  America 
to  cease  supplying  war  material  to  the  Allies. 
Had  Germany  obtained  that  apparently  natural  and 
simple  proof  of  absolute  neutrality  the  war  would 
have  ended  by  the  utter  defeat  of  France,  Great  Britain, 
and  Russia,  before  the  end  of  1914- 

It  is  practically  certain  that  if  the  United  States 
had  adopted  the  principle  of  a  neutrality  entailing 
the  non-delivery  of  war  material,  Chili  would  have 
followed.  The  only  source  of  oxidized  nitrogen 
would  have  been  cut  off,  thus  making  impossible 

24 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama        %5 

the  manufacture  of  any  powder  and  of  any  explosive 
by  the  opponents  of  German  tyranny. 

Why  did  America  reject  this  request,  presented 
as  it  was  under  such  plausible  colours  and  sustained 
by  such  a  seductive  argument? 

"Why,"  said  the  Boche  spokesmen  in  the 
United  States,  "you  have  declared  your  intention 
of  being  sincerely  neutral,  yet,  actually,  you  break 
that  theoretical  neutrality.  You  are  furnishing 
implements  of  war  to  the  combatants  engaged  on 
one  side  of  the  great  contest,  while  those  on  the 
other  side  cannot  receive  anything!  Is  that  neu- 
trality? Certainly  not ! " 

PANAMA'S  INFLUENCE  ON  AMERICAN  NEUTRALITY 

This  plausible  argument  would  certainly  have 
won  over  public  opinion  in  the  United  States  had 
it  remained  in  1914  what  it  had  been  during  the 
last  third  of  the  nineteenth  century.  It  appealed  to 
the  American  sense  of  justice  and  fair  play.  It 
denounced  at  the  same  time  a  prima-facie  injustice 
against  a  race  counting  in  America  twenty  millions 
of  representatives  and  in  favour  of  a  group  of 
nations  none  of  which  enjoyed  the  sympathy  of  the 
United  States. 

It  is  known  that  Great  Britain  was  the  object  of 


26        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

a  continuous  and  antagonistic  propaganda  by  the 
powerful  Irish  element.  Russia  was  the  object 
of  active  and  violent  denunciations  by  the  still 
more  powerful  Hebrew  element  which  concen- 
trates on  Russia  the  same  energy  of  execrations 
which  their  ancestors  in  biblical  times  focussed  on 
the  Assyrian  Empire.  As  for  France,  the  great 
error  of  Napoleon  III — the  foundation  of  the 
Mexican  Empire  in  defiance  of  the  Monroe  Doc- 
trine— had  placed  her  in  a  bad  position.  She  had 
lost  in  1870  the  sympathy  if  not  the  friendship  of  the 
United  States.  Naturally  the  always-active  Ger- 
man propaganda  was  making  constant  use  of  these 
antagonistic  dispositions  of  the  various  sections  of 
American  opinion  against  France,  Great  Britain, 
and  Russia  respectively.  The  result  was  the 
creation  of  an  anti-Anglo-Franco-Russian  and  pro- 
German  sentiment  in  the  United  States  up  to  1900. 
Had  the  war  broken  out  at  the  end  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  Boche 
hypocritical  predication  for  sincere  neutrality 
would  have  succeeded.  But  in  1914-15,  Boche 
diplomacy  had  been  beaten  in  the  United  States. 
The  conditions  were  no  longer  the  same  as  in  1900. 
The  propaganda  against  France  had  struck  a 
gigantic  obstacle:  PANAMA! 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama        %7 

The  great  work  of  the  inter-oceanic  canal — which 
was  in  France  certainly  given  its  quietus  by  Boche 
intrigue — had  been  resurrected.  Its  failure  had 
been  made  use  of,  in  France,  to  destroy  all  confi- 
dence of  the  nation  in  herself,  and,  in  America,  to 
demonstrate  that  the  French  were  a  contemptible 
and  decadent  nation.  But  the  resurrection  of  the 
Panama  Canal  enterprise  by  the  American  Gov- 
ernment had  wiped  out  the  traces  of  the  Boche 
predications. 

Theodore  Roosevelt  had  not  only  honoured  the' 
French  name  in  giving  France  credit  for  her  great  * 
accomplishment,  but  at  the  same  time  he  had  ex-- 
hibited  the  scandalous  enormity  of  the  injustice' 
done  to  the  French  honour  in  this  matter.     The  - 
greatness,  the  disinterestedness,  the  generosity  of 
the  French  mind,  appeared  to  him  and  to  the 
United  States  in  their  true  light. 

A  gradual  and  total  inversion  of  the  American 
sentiment  for  France  was  effected  during  the  ten 
years  which  lapsed  between  1904  and  1914.  This 
space  of  time  has  for  origin  the  moment  I  exchanged 
at  Washington  (26th  of  February,  1904)  the  ratifi- 
cations of  the  treaty  which  I  had  signed  with  the 
Secretary  of  State,  Mr.  Hay,  on  behalf  of  the  Re- 
public of  Panama,  for  the  construction  of  the 


28        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

Canal.  Its  end  is  the  day  of  the  declaration  of 
war  (3rd  of  August,  1914)  which  is  also  the  day  of 
the  passage  of  the  first  great  ocean  steamer  from 
the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  through  the  Panama 
Canal. 

On  that  memorable  day  facts  had  spoken  elo- 
quently on  behalf  of  Franco-American  mutual 
respect  and  friendship.  There  was  no  longer  an 
ear  to  listen  to  the  Boche  predication  about  the 
decadence  of  France. 

If  France  had  been  attacked  in  1900,  the  United 
States  would  have  seen  in  this  fact  the  sad  but 
irremediable  spectacle  of  the  forced  disappearance 
of  an  old,  worn-out  nation  before  a  young  and 
growing  country.  At  that  time  the  sympathy  of 
America  would  have  been  for  Germany — against 
France,  Great  Britain,  and  Russia. 

In  1914,  however,  Panama  had  lifted  from  before 

"American  eyes  the  veil  which  German  propaganda 

1  had  lowered,  and  France  was  restored  in  America's 

'  affection  and  in  her  respect.     The  common  enter- 

*  prise  of  Panama — in  which  the  genius  of  each  na- 

'  tion  had  played  so  important  and  so  conspicuous  a 

part — had   reunited   the   hearts   of   France   and 

America.     That  friendship  had  an  eloquent  and 

powerful    living    expression.    It    was    Theodore 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama        29 

Roosevelt  whose  pro-Ally  energy  had  its  roots  also 
in  the  Panama  enterprise. 

Not  only  had  Panama  revived  American  regard 
for  France  but  Germany's  operations  in  the  Carib- 
bean, the  result  of  Panama,  had  begun  to  open 
American  eyes  to  Germany's  true  character  and 
intentions. 

It  can,  therefore,  safely  be  asserted  that  Panama 
had  a  direct  and  most  important  effect  upon  the 
attitude  of  the  United  States  during  its  neutrality 
and  in  its  actual  entering  of  the  war.  It  helped 
very  materially  to  maintain  America  in  the  frame 
of  mind  to  furnish  France  with  explosives,  and  also 
the  Canal  itself  provided  a  means  for  the  nitrates 
of  Chile  to  reach  the  battlefront  in  France.  To 
French  genius  France  owes  the  creation  of  the 
"75";  she  also  owes  to  her  genius  the  creation  of 
the  great  international  highway  which,  thanks  to 
its  resurrection  by  American  hands,  made  possible 
the  feeding  of  the  "75." 

PANAMA    AND   AMERICA'S   HELP 

The  importance  of  the  service  rendered  by 
America  and  the  significance  of  the  befriending 
influence  of  the  Great  Adventure  of  Panama  may 
be  judged  by  the  following  figures: 


30        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

During  the  war  America  furnished  France  with 
a  quantity  of  powder  about  equal  to  that  neces- 
sary for  firing  250,000,000  shots  with  the  "75" 
gun.  This  means  a  quantity  of  powder  sufficient 
to  use  up  25,000  "75"  guns,  each  one  having 
fired  10,000  times. 

To  conceive  the  enormous  quantity  of  powder 
thus  provided  we  must  realize  that  when  the  war 
began  we  had  scarcely  4,000  of  these  "75"  guns 
and  nobody  supposed  they  could  stand  shooting 
more  than  5,000  times. 

Of  course  the  high  explosives  sent  by  America 
were  in  quantity  proportionate  with  that  of  the 
gunpowder. 

It  may  be  convenient  also  to  recall  that  the 
Panama  Canal — which  was  closed  almost  a  year 
during  the  war  on  account  of  the  slides  at  Culebra 
—has  given  passage  to  more  than  seven  and  a  half 
billion  pounds  of  nitrates.  This  makes  about  a 
billion  pounds  of  nitrogen,  the  greater  part  of 
which  went  to  the  United  States  to  be  used  in  the 
powder  and  high-explosives  mills. 

The  foregoing  will  suffice  to  indicate  the  extraor- 
dinary importance  of  the  part  played  by  the 
Panama  Canal  in  the  providential  defeat  of  the 
Germans.  The  good  feelings  for  France,  sown  in 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama        31 

the  United  States  by  the  adoption  and  completion 
of  the  great  work  initiated  by  France,  had  pre- 
vented the  prohibition  of  exports  of  war  material. 
Later,  because  of  the  power  of  predication  of 
Theodore  Roosevelt,  of  his  enthusiastic  support, 
and  of  the  development  of  admiration  for  the 
heroic  resistance  of  France,  the  conception  of  a 
higher  duty  was  built  up  in  American  hearts. 

The  great  Republic  understood  finally  what 
Theodore  Roosevelt  has  told  her  from  the  outset: 
that  neutrality  before  crime  was  as  much  a  moral 
as  a  physical  suicide.  She  went  to  war  with  all 
her  might.  She  made  her  power  felt  just  at  the 
moment  when  the  German  political  gases  had 
annihilated  Russia,  when  the  equilibrium  of  forces 
was  consequently  totally  disturbed  in  our  enemy's 
favour.  She  entered  the  active  field  of  warfare 
when  Germany  seemed  bound  to  triumph — owing 
to  the  collapse  of  Russia;  and  her  entrance  on  the 
battlefield  turned  the  scales  of  fate.  Both  at  the 
beginning  and  at  the  end  of  the  great  war  Amer- 
ica's attitude  determined  the  victory.  In  both 
cases  that  attitude  resulted  from  the  same  cause: 
the  moral  link  established  between  America  and 
France  by  their  common  enterprise  of  Panama. 
The  current  of  reciprocal  confidence  and  good  feel- 


32        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

ing   which   it   created   accomplished   both   these 
wonders,  and  saved  the  world. 

It  seems  therefore  entirely  justified  to  study  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  Great  War  the  specific 
conditions  of  the  adoption  of  Panama  by  the 
United  States,  and  to  trace  the  history  of  the 
series  of  facts  which  led  to  this  historical  decision 
which  forms  the  culminating  point  of  the  Great 
Adventure  of  Panama  as  we  shall  see  later  on. 

It  will  be  a  most  useful  contribution  to  the  his- 
tory of  the  world  to  show  how  the  Franco-American 
friendship  was  almost  completely  destroyed  by  the 
foundation  of  the  Mexican  Empire.  No  less  im- 
portant will  be  the  history  of  the  adoption  of 
Panama  by  which  this  precious  friendship  was  re- 
constituted. It  will  be  for  many  people  an  in- 
teresting trip  to  follow  the  romantic  events  which 
led  to  that  adoption. 

I  invite  them  to  witness  with  me  the  different 
phases  of  the  Great  Adventure  of  Panama  after 
having  understood  the  network  of  Boche  intrigues 
in  Mexico,  in  France,  in  Colombia,  in  the  United 
States.  They  will  learn  to  worship  the  name  of 
the  great  citizen  Theodore  Roosevelt  who — with  his 
eminent  coadjutors  John  Hay  and  Francis  B. 
Loomis — cleverly,  audaciously,  led  the  ship  of 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama        33 

State  to  a  safe  harbour  through  the  treacherous 
concealed  mines  laid  in  the  channel  by  Germany. 
They  will  learn  to  despise  the  dullards,  the 
hypocrites  who  speak  of  this  Panama  Revolu- 
tion— the  origin  of  the  salvation  of  humanity 
— as  a  "put-up  job"  or  as  a  "staged  affair." 
They  will  see  that  the  Panama  Revolution  of 
November,  1903,  was  nothing  but  the  legitimate 
expression  of  the  right  of  a  nation  to  dispose  of 
herself.  They  will  be  convinced  that  the  United 
States  Government  had  no  more  hand  in  it  than 
had  the  French  Government,  and  that,  therefore, 
if  Colombia  had  a  claim  against  Panama  it  was 
the  claim  of  Shylock  for  the  pound  of  flesh,  a  claim 
not  receivable  in  court. 

In  spite  of  the  concealed,  disguised,  or  open 
accusations  against  the  Roosevelt  policy,  nothing 
has  been  brought  for  sixteen  years  to  support  the 
slightest  shadow  of  a  proof  of  complicity  between 
the  American  Government  and  the  Panama  revo- 
lutionists. The  Boches,  who  have  been  the  most 
active  accusers  because  they  were  the  greatest 
sufferers  of  President  Roosevelt's  straightforward 
action,  continue  to  pump  lies  into  credulous  ears. 
They  remain  faithful  to  their  motto:  "Truth  is 
anything  you  can  make  people  believe." 


34        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

WHAT   DOES    "l   TOOK    PANAMA"    MEAN? 

The  only  straw  at  which  their  drowning  calumny 
could  clutch  was  the  celebrated  phrase:  "I  took 
Panama,"  which  Theodore  Roosevelt  pronounced 
in  California. 

When  the  sentence  was  reported  by  the  papers 
I  understood  that  it  meant:  "I  took  Panama 
because  Panama  offered  herself  in  order  to  be 
protected  against  Colombia's  tyranny  and  greed." 

Recently  in  speaking  to  a  distinguished  visitor 
to  Oyster  Bay — William  Morton  Fullerton,  the 
eminent  writer  on  international  problems — Theo- 
dore Roosevelt  explained  the  sentence  in  this 
familiar  way:  "I  took  Panama  because  Bunau- 
Varilla  brought  it  to  me  on  a  silver  platter." 

It  is  obvious  that  Theodore  Roosevelt's  own 
interpretation  of  his  sentence  harmonizes  entirely 
with  mine. 

It  does  not  mean  as  the  advocates  of  Colombia 
say:  "I  took  Panama  away  from  her  mother 
country  Colombia  because  the  interests  of  the 
United  States  wanted  it."  It  means :  "I  protected 
Panama,  at  her  pressing  request,  from  the  tyran- 
nical greed  of  Colombia,  because  her  preservation 
and  the  world's  interests  wanted  it." 


CHAPTER  IV 

The  occult  power  of  Germany 

BEFORE  going  into  the  history  of  the  Boche  con- 
spiracies centred  around  the  Panama  Canal,  it  is 
necessary  to  make  the  reader  acquainted  with  the 
conspirator  himself.  Though  every  school  in  the 
world  should  teach  the  record  of  this  dangerous 
enemy  of  mankind,  very  few  people  know  even  the 
principal  elements  of  the  astounding  history  of 
Prussia. 

Let  us,  for  one  moment,  leave  aside  the  pre- 
liminary period,  the  one  buried  in  the  darkness  of 
the  Middle  Ages.  Let  us  examine  what  took  place 
in  the  last  three  centuries,  and  we  will  afterward 
cast  a  look  on  the  preceding  phase  of  German  his- 
tory. This  will  show  us  what  a  formidable  enemy 
Prussia  is;  it  will  show  what  powerful  organization 
humanity  has  still  to  face,  what  precaution  it  has 
to  take  for  its  future  protection  and  defence. 

The  enemy  who,  since  1619,  had  successfully  and 
persistently  developed  the  plans  which  would  have 

35 


36        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

made  him  the  master  of  Europe  in  1919,  if  it  had 
not  been  for  the  American  intervention,  is  going 
to  continue  and  to  persist  in  spite  of  his  temporary 
setback. 

To  look  for  the  key  of  the  future  let  us  investi- 
gate the  past.  We  shall  find  it  there. 

FIRST   GROWTH    OF   THE   PRUSSIAN   OCTOPUS 

In  1619 — just  three  centuries  ago — the  Prussian 
octopus  began  to  grow. 

Then  George  William  I,  a  prince  belonging 
to  the  House  of  Hohenzollern,  became  the  first 
sovereign  of  the  electorate  of  Brandenburg  and 
of  the  Dukedom  of  Prussia  (East  Prussia),  from 
that  day  on  permanently  united. 

We  are  going  to  review  the  successive  increases 
of  the  Prussian  octopus.  The  dates  only  will  be 
mentioned,  to  avoid  minute  geographical  details. 

THE   SUCCESSIVE   INCREASES   OF    PRUSSIA 

In  1648,  twenty-nine  years  after  the  first  in- 
crease, the  second  one  takes  place. 

In  1707-13-20  we  find  three  new  ones  forming, 
so  to  say,  one  mass  of  increases.  (The  period 
separating  the  second  increase  from  the  beginning 
of  the  third  mass  of  increases  is  fifty-nine  years.) 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama        37 

In  1772,  after  fifty-two  years  of  apparent  quie- 
tude, the  fourth  increase  takes  place. 

In  1793-95,  twenty-one  years  later,  the  fifth  in- 
crease is  registered. 

In  1815,  twenty  years  later,  we  find  the  gigantic 
step  forward  toward  the  west,  which  gives  to 
Prussia  the  low  Rhine  valley.  It  is  the  sixth  in- 
crease. 

Forty -nine  years  later,  in  1864,  we  see  the  origin 
of  the  group  of  increases,  which  began  by  the  ab- 
sorption of  Schleswig-Holstein,  and  finished  in  1871 
by  that  of  Alsace-Lorraine,  after  the  expulsion,  in 
1866,  of  Austria  out  of  Germany.  This  is  the 
seventh  increase. 

After  forty-three  years  of  preparation  began  the 
ferocious  aggression  of  1914,  the  attempt  at  the ' 
eighth  and  final  increase.  This  onslaught  aimed 
not  merely  as  the  preceding  ones  at  the  conquest 
of  provinces  belonging  either  to  German  princes  or 
to  neighbour  nations,  but  at  the  conquest  of 
Europe,  and,  soon  after,  of  the  rest  of  the  world. 

This  last  and  gigantic  bandit's  raid  on  friends' 
property  has  failed.  It  failed,  thanks  to  Amer- 
ican intervention.  It  failed,  thanks  to  the  help- 
ing hand  that,  before  her  own  participation 
in  the  struggle,  the  United  States  extended  to 


38        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

France  in  furnishing  her  with  explosives  and  other 
munitions  of  war. 

CAUSE   OF   THE   EXPANSIONS    OF   PRUSSIA 

The  resume  just  given  shows  that,  after  the  first 
increase  of  Prussia,  which  took  place  three  hundred 
years  ago,  a  constant  and  permanent  pressure  was 
exerted  by  Prussia  on  her  neighbours.  It  shows 
that  after  the  quiescent  periods — which  lasted 
never  more  than  fifty -nine  years  and  not  less  than 
twenty,  a  new  expansion  always  took  place. 

The  maintenance  of  the  same  policy  and  the 
securing  of  similar  results,  during  a  period  of  300 
years,  is  a  most  extraordinary  thing  in  the  world's 
history.  The  permanence  and  the  continuity  of 
the  phenomenon  demonstrate  that  it  is  not  the 
result  of  the  action  of  the  sovereign — of  an  auto- 
cratic sovereign. 

If  the  autocratic  sovereign  had  been  the  cause, 
the  results  would  have  been  influenced  by  the 
variations,  the  unavoidable  variations,  of  the  char- 
acter of  the  successive  generations  in  the  same 
family.  The  permanence  of  the  main  features  of 
the  Prussian  history  demonstrates  that  the  source 
of  its  political  power  did  not  flow  from  its  sover- 
eigns, but  from  another  centre  of  influence. 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama        39 

THE  CONTINUITY  OF  THE  JUNKER    OLIGARCHY 

This  continuity  indicates  that  the  real  sovereign 
was  not  the  king  or  the  emperor,  but  a  permanent 
force  such  as  a  collective  body  only  could  consti- 
tute, because  such  organizations  alone  can  remain 
young  and  active  for  centuries,  and  defy  that  which 
destroys  energy  or  genius  among  individuals. 

It  is  certain  that  this  permanent  political  entity- 
is  an  aristocratic  oligarchy,  the  Junker  oligarchy. 

The  so-called  Junker  party  is  much  more  than  a 
party;  it  is  an  essential — a  vital — part  of  the  form 
of  government  of  Prussia.  It  is  that  part  of  the 
government  which  has  made  possible  the  conquest 
of  Germany  within  250  years,  and  almost  that  of 
Europe — not  to  say  of  the  world — within  300  years. 

After  the  Crusades,  the  Teutonic  Knights  "of 
the  Order  of  the  Hospital  of  St.  John  of  Jerusalem  " 
received  a  papal  brief  giving  them  the  mission  to 
conquer  and  convert  to  Christianity  the  popula- 
tion living  east  of  the  Elbe,  which  was  then,  more 
or  less,  the  oriental  frontier  of  the  Germanic  race. 

The  political  power  of  the  Teutonic  Knights  was 
broken  by  the  Poles  on  the  15th  of  July,  1410,  in 
the  historical  Battle  of  Tannenberg.  This  momen- 
tous victory  placed  Western  Prussia,  that  is  Danzig 


40        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

and  the  low  valley  of  the  Vistula,  in  Polish  terri- 
tory. It  made  East  Prussia,  the  last  dominion  of 
the  Teutonic  Knights,  a  vassal  of  the  Polish  kings. 
Almost  entirely  broken  by  this  defeat  the  Teutonic 
Order  subsisted,  however,  while  looking  for  a  new 
equilibrium. 

The  Treaty  of  Peace  of  Cracow  in  1525  registered 
the  secularization  of  the  Teutonic  Order.  Its 
Grand  Master,  Albert  von  Brandenburg,  estab- 
lished the  hereditary  Dukedom  of  Prussia  in  what 
is  now  called  East  Prussia.  The  monastic  order 
disappeared  as  a  political  entity,  but  all  its  con- 
stituent elements — that  is,  the  members  of  the 
Prussian  aristocracy — remained. 

These  Junkers  had  been  linked  by  the  discipline 
of  the  Monastic  Order — they  remained  bonded 
together  by  national  obligations  when  religious 
obligations  had  disappeared. 

One  can  say  that  the  Junker  oligarchy  is  nothing 
but  the  contemporary  form  of  the  old  Monastic 
Government  of  the  Teutonic  Order  and  that  it  has 
never  ceased  to  be  the  invisible  government  of 
Prussia. 

If  one  follows  this  line  of  thought  it  soon  becomes 
apparent  that  a  striking  resemblance  exists  be- 
tween the  actual  systems  of  the  Prusso-Germans 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama        41 

and  those  of  the  Teutonic  Order  in  the  Middle 
Ages.  It  is,  for  instance,  easy  to  trace  the  source 
of  the  cruelty  with  which  the  World  War  was 
conducted  on  the  German  side  if  one  remembers 
that  these  cruelties  formed  part  of  the  principles 
of  warfare  of  the  Teutonic  Order. 

German  historians  record  the  work  of  the 
Teutonic  Knights,  in  terms  which  strictly  apply 
to  the  abominable  conduct  of  the  German  armies 
in  Belgium  and  in  France. 

Schleicher  says: 

Never  was  a  pagan  nation,  good,  brave,  and  generous, 
more  maltreated  by  her  new  masters,  the  Teutonic 
Knights,  than  were  the  Borussians.  The  history  of 
these  fights  to  death  may  be  cited  as  one  of  the  most 
sinister  episodes  of  humanity.  It  surpasses  in  duration 
and  cruelty  the  history  of  the  conquest  of  Mexico  and 
of  Peru. 

Ewerbeck  wrote: 

Never  was  a  pagan  people  exterminated  under  more 
atrocious  conditions.  Thirty  years  of  death  struggle, 
day  after  day,  night  after  night,  scarcely  sufficed  to 
break  this  small  and  energetic  nationality. 

Does  not  this  apply  exactly  to  the  recent  cam- 
paigns of  the  Germans  against  the  Herreros  in 


42        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

Southwest  Africa,  where  a  pagan  population  of 
800,000  souls  was  exterminated  and  reduced  after 
a  few  years  to  15,000  by  the  Prussian  method  of 
warfare,  which  is  nothing  but  the  application  of 
the  principles  of  the  Knights  of  the  Teutonic 
Order,  six  hundred  years  ago? 

THE  FLAG   OF  THE  UNDERTAKER 

It  is  easy  also  to  understand  why  Prussia  has  on 
her  flag  the  colours  of  the  undertaker — white  and 
black;  why  her  highest  decorations  are  also  marked 
with  the  undertaker's  colours — white  and  black. 
It  is  because  these  two  sad — and,  when  associated, 
ghastly  looking — colours  were  the  colours  of  the 
cross  that  the  Teutonic  Knights  wore  on  their 
breast. 

Prussia  yesterday  was  marching  ahead  toward 
the  conquest  of  the  world  under  the  flag  that  pre- 
ceded the  Teutonic  Knights  in  their  conquest  of  the 
territories  east  of  the  Elbe. 

Having  obtained,  from  the  foregoing,  a  clear 
conception  of  the  source  of  the  continuous  Prussian 
successes  for  three  hundred  years  it  is  not  out  of 
place  to  quote  here  the  celebrated  phrase  pro- 
nounced by  the  German  patriot,  Schleiermacher, 
in  1807,  when  Prussia  seemed  to  be  doomed  for- 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama'      43 

ever,  when  the  Treaty  of  Tilsit  cut  from  her  all 
provinces  west  of  the  Elbe.     He  said : 

Germany  is  always  there  and  her  occult  power  is  un- 
touched. 

He  certainly  meant: 

Prussia  is  always  there  and  her  occult  power  is 
untouched. 

We  know  now  that  the  occult  power  resided  in 
the  occult  government  of  the  Junker  oligarchy. 

The  victories  of  Napoleon  had  broken  Prussia's 
military  force  but  had  left  untouched  the  occult 
power  of  the  Junkers.  We  can  say,  to-day  that 
the  victories  of  the  Allies  in  1914-18  have  had 
the  same  result,  and  that  the  Junker  oligarchy  is 
still  untouched,  just  as  in  1807. 

Prince  Von  Buelow,  the  former  German  Chan- 
cellor, hi  a  book  written  before  the  war,  recom- 
mends every  loyal  German  to  engrave  the  sentence 
of  Schleiermacher  on  his  heart. 

I  recommend  to  everyone  who  suffered  from  the 
sinister  German  aggression  of  1914  to  engrave — 
after  changing  the  word  "Germany"  to  that  of 
"Prussia" — the  very  same  sentence  twice  on  his 
brain:  once  in  order  to  obtain  an  interpretation  of 


44        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

the  past,  once  in  order  to  obtain  an  interpretation 
of  the  future. 

When,  with  that  sentence  engraved  on  the  brain, 
we  look  at  the  past,  we  better  understand  another 
recommendation  of  Prince  Von  Buelow  to  his 
countrymen:  "The  future  of  our  history  depends 
on  the-  manner  in  which  the  German  mind  will  be 
influenced  by  Prussian  monarchy." 

Of  course,  Prussian  monarchy  means  Prussian 
government,  and  Prussian  government  means 
Junker  government.  But  we  must  not  attach  an 
undue  influence  to  the  label  placed  on  the  bottle. 
It  is  the  contents  that  must  be  carefully  analyzed 
and  examined. 

"SANCTA   GERMANICA   STUPIDITAS" 

This  conception  of  the  interior  mechanism  of  the 
German  Government  explains  also  certain  appar- 
ently unsolvable  mysteries  of  the  German  politics. 

When  you  analyze  the  main  points  of  the  his- 
tory of  the  Great  War  you  are  struck  by  two  dis- 
cordant series  of  facts. 

At  first  you  cannot  fail  to  be  amazed  by  the  won- 
derful and  harmonic  series  of  minute  preparations 
made  by  the  Prusso-Germans  to  secure  victory 
within  a  few  weeks  after  unchaining  the  war. 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama       45 

If  you  overlook  the  moral  infamy  which  these 
preparations  demonstrate;  if  you  observe  only  the 
regularity  and  the  enormity  of  the  spider's  web 
thrown  over  the  whole  globe,  you  cannot  but  feel  a 
certain  admiration  for  the  perfection  and  complete- 
ness of  the  job.  You  suspect  the  presence  of  a 
criminal  genius,  but,  after  all,  of  a  genius. 

But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  you  examine  the  de- 
cisions adopted  by  Germany  at  every  critical 
phase  of  the  war  you  are  struck  by  an  impression  of 
unexampled  stupidity. 

Germany  had  made  incredible  and  successful  ef- 
forts to  obtain  the  monopoly  of  the  explosives  and 
the  practical  monopoly  of  the  extraction  of  ni- 
trogen from  the  atmosphere.  If  England  had  not 
joined  the  war,  Germany  might  have  cut  the  trans- 
portation of  the  Chilean  nitrates  to  France.  This 
would  have  ended  the  war  immediately,  as  no  war 
could  be  continued  without  powder  and  high  ex- 
plosives. 

The  mastery  of  the  sea  was,  for  France,  an 
indispensable  condition  of  the  possibility  of  fight- 
ing. Only  England  could  ensure  it. 

What  did  Germany  do?  She  practically  slapped 
England  in  the  face  by  the  invasion  of  Belgium; 
she  virtually  forced  England  to  fight;  she  deprived 


46        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

her  numerous  supporters  residing  in  the  British 
Isles  of  any  argument  to  prevent  England  from 
going  to  war.  Germany,  therefore,  by  an  incon- 
ceivable stupidity,  so  acted  as  to  force  England  to 
give  to  France  the  benefit  of  this  mastery  of  the 
sea  without  which  any  sustained  struggle  was  im- 
possible. 

After  the  first  battle  of  the  war  it  became  ap- 
parent that  the  gigantic  power  of  America,  if 
thrown  on  one  of  the  scales  of  fate,  would  deter- 
mine which  side  would  win  the  victory. 

It  seems  to  any  reasonable  being  that,  on  the 
part  of  Germany,  not  a  stone  should  have  been 
left  unturned  to  prevent  a  break  in  her  relations 
with  the  United  States.  Yet,  on  the  contrary, 
by  a  fatuity  scarcely  credible,  every  class  of  Boche 
crime  was  freely  committed  on  the  territory  of  the 
United  States,  and  on  the  high  seas,  against  the 
dignity  of  the  great  American  republic. 

The  most  peaceable,  the  most  neutral  country 
would  have  been  driven  to  exasperation  by  such 
treatment.  The  United  States,  it  may  confidently 
be  affirmed,  was  pushed  into  the  war  by  the 
German  incurable  stupidity. 

It  is  a  fact  that  submarine  warfare  enabled  Ger- 
many to  sink  a  tonnage  equal  to  about  one  half  of 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama        47 

the  total  mercantile  marine  of  Great  Britain;  that 
is  to  say,  one  quarter  of  the  total  mercantile  marine 
of  the  world.  It  is  also  a  fact  that  this  huge  de- 
struction was  effected  by  an  insignificant  number 
of  submarine  craft  in  actual  fighting. 

The  number  of  submarines  at  work — not  count- 
ing those  coming  from  or  returning  to  their  base, 
those  under  repairs,  etc. — was  estimated  by  the 
highest  naval  authorities  of  America  and  Great 
Britain  at  between  eight  and  twelve.  This  esti- 
mate was  confirmed  by  German  testimony. 

What  would  have  been  the  outcome  of  the  war  if 
Germany  had  understood,  in  1904,  the  vital  im- 
portance of  the  submersible,  when  it  had  just  been 
created?  What  would  have  been  the  destiny  of 
England  if  three  hundred  German  submarines  had 
blocked  her  access  to  the  seas  on  the  5th  of 
August,  1914? 

Fortunately  the  amazing  shortsightedness  of 
Germany  prevented  her  from  seeing  the  light  at  the 
proper  moment.  Von  Tirpitz  understood  the  sub- 
marine ten  years  too  late!  German  war  prepa- 
rations were  complete  for  all  land  operations  but 
were  lacking  for  the  one  weapon  which  would 
have  assured  the  Central  Powers  a  complete  and 
immediate  mastery  of  the  sea  and  would  have 


48        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

practically  strangled  England  at  the  very  com- 
mencement of  the  war. 

These  few  facts  show  the  intellectual  character 
of  the  invisible  government  of  Germany. 

Its  action — as  often  happens  with  collective, 
well-disciplined  bodies — is  remarkably  thorough, 
methodic,  and  complete,  where  a  preparation  of 
from  twenty  to  fifty  years  is  concerned,  but  it  is 
absolutely  lacking  in  these  spontaneous  flashes  of 
intellectual  light  which  make  clearly  visible  for 
men  of  genius  the  horizons  of  the  future  in  critical 
circumstances. 

A  humorous  Frenchman  has  said  that  if,  in  the 
great  invasion  of  the  Huns,  led  by  Attila,  Paris 
was  protected  by  Sainte-Genevieve,  France  herself 
was  protected,  in  the  recent  invasion  of  the  Ger- 
mans, by  a  still  more  efficacious  saint:  "Sancta 
Germanica  Stupiditas"  To  her  the  French,  and 
consequently  humanity,  are  indebted  for  the 
master  blunders  by  which  "German  Stupidity" 
offset  the  results  of  a  patiently,  carefully,  cun- 
ningly, treacherously  prepared  aggression,  after 
half  a  century  of  constant  endeavours,  of  the 
German  superior  sense  of  organization. 


CHAPTER  V 

Boche  conspiracy  in  Mexico  (1861-63)   preparing  the 
provocation  of  1870 

IN  ORDER  to  have  a  clear  understanding  of  the 
reconciliation  of  America  and  France,  through  the 
medium  of  the  Panama  enterprise,  it  is  necessary 
to  understand  how  that  precious  friendship  had 
been  ruptured.  There,  also,  we  shall  undoubtedly 
find  the  sly  hand  of  the  Boche. 

Of  course  Germany's  accomplices  will  raise  their 
hands  toward  the  heavens  and  say — as  did  the 
ninety-three  German  philosophers  and  scientists 
of  1914,  the  flower  of  German  Intellectual  Ser- 
vility: "Das  ist  nicht  wahr."  ("That  is  not 
true.") 

My  answer  to  them  is  that  where  Boche  in- 
terests call  for  the  perpetration  of  an  infamy,  it  is 
unhesitatingly  committed,  owing  to  the  magnifi- 
cent organization  of  Prussia  for  such  purpose.  I 
may  add  that  where  no  material  proofs  can  be  fur- 
nished, it  is  because  these  infamies  are  committed 


50        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

according  to  the  principle  of  Count  Von  Luxburg, 
the  eminent  spokesman  of  the  German  system  of  di- 
plomacy by  assassination,  "without  having  traces." 

But  I  can  add  further  that  if  the  trail  of  a  snake 
on  a  rock  leaves  no  visible  trace,  it  does,  however, 
leave  a  smell;  and  that  smell  proves  just  as  cer- 
tainly as  if  tangible  evidence  could  be  furnished, 
that  the  reptile  has  been  there. 

This  being  explained,  let  us  pass  to  the  facts 
which  determined  almost  a  state  of  war  between 
France  and  America  in  1865.  Examination  of 
them  will  undoubtedly  reveal  the  certitude  that 
this  lamentable  state  of  things  was  brought  about 
by  Boche  intrigues. 

In  1861,  as  everybody  knows,  the  Civil  War  in 
the  United  States  began.  At  the  same  time  a 
punitive  expedition  was .  organized  by  England, 
France,  and  Spam  against  Mexico,  to  enforce  cer- 
tain claims  for  damages  suffered  in  Mexico  by 
citizens  of  these  countries. 

THE  MEXICAN  EXPEDITION  UNDER  PRIM 

The  expedition  of  these  associated  countries  was 
placed  Under  a  Spanish  general  named  Prim. 
Very  soon  after  Prim  withdrew  from  Mexico  with 
the  Spanish  and  English  forces. 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama       51 

The  French  forces  had  been  previously  engaged 
in  such  a  way  as  to  render  difficult  their  with- 
drawal without  loss,  if  not  of  honour,  at  least  of 
prestige.  So  the  French  remained. 

In  1863 — when  the  United  States  were  torn 
asunder  by  the  terrible  conflict  between  North 
and  South  and  therefore  unable  to  react — a  new 
phase  opened. 

An  empire  was  established  in  Mexico  with  an 
Austrian  prince  as  ruler. 

Here  we  draw  a  very  obvious  inference  of 
Boche  diplomacy. 

BISMARCK    VICARIOUSLY   TESTS   MONROE   DOCTRINE 

In  1863,  Bismarck  was  preparing  a  war  against 
Austria  which  was  to  take  place  in  1866  and  also  a 
war  against  France  which  was  to  take  place  in 
1870. 

Is  it  not  an  uncanny  and  striking  fact  that  in  the 
very  same  year  the  emperors  of  France  and  Aus- 
tria adopted  a  policy  in  defiance  of  the  Monroe 
Doctrine?  An  empire  of  Mexico  is  created  by  the 
bayonets  of  France  and  the  Emperor  of  Mexico  is 
an  archduke  of  Austria! 

Who  will  believe  that  the  foundation  of  the 
Mexican  Empire  was  not  a  creation  of  Bismarck's 


52        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

mind?  Who  will  believe  that  this  monumental 
absurdity  of  Napoleon  Ill's  government  was 
not  concocted  and  devised  in  Berlin?  Who  will 
doubt  that  Bismarck  did  not  try  thereby  to 
weaken  his  future  adversaries  by  making  them 
enter  into  a  conflict  with  the  United  States? 

Here,  in  the  slight  inflicted  on  the  United  States 
by  the  innocent  but  stupid  diplomacy  of  Napoleon 
III,  we  have  a  first  demonstration  of  a  positive 
character  of  the  Boche  hand.  It  is  the  first  scent 
disclosing  the  trail  of  the  snake  on  the  rock. 

PRIM  AND  THE  BOCHE  GERM  OF  WAR  IN   1870 

If  we  look  a  little  further  into  the  history  of  that 
period;  if  we  look  into  the  very  origin  of  the  war 
of  1870-71,  we  are  struck  by  another  fact.  Again 
it  points  straight  toward  Berlin  as  the  source  of 
the  Mexican  Expedition. 

Everybody  knows  that  Prussia  always  paves  the 
way  for  her  criminal  wars  by  introducing  a  cause 
of  intolerable  friction,  of  which  she  pleads  to  be  the 
innocent  victim.  Her  wilfully  credulous  people 
can  satisfy  their  inborn  hypocritical  patriotism 
by  calling  a  cynical  aggression  by  the  name  of 
"Defensive  War." 

The  cause  of  friction  which  permitted  Prussia 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama        53 

to  launch  the  war  of  1914,  while  professing  to  be 
forced  to  it  by  the  Russian  mobilization,  was  the 
ultimatum  of  Austria  to  Servia.  Prince  Lich- 
nowski,  Dr.  Muehlon,  the  ambassador  of  Bavaria 
to  Berlin,  the  ambassador  of  Germany  to  Turkey, 
all  have  willingly  or  unwillingly  certified  that  the 
crime  was  decided  on  July  5,  1914,  in  Berlin. 

The  cause  of  friction  which  enabled  Prussia  to 
launch  the  war  of  1870  was  the  not-less-infamous 
Hohenzollern  candidature  to  the  Spanish  throne. 
Victory  has  since  covered  with  its  laurels  the  nu- 
dity of  the  crime  then  committed.  But  the  his- 
torian can  discover  it  just  the  same  by  citing  the 
witnesses. 

The  man  who  advanced  this  candidature  was 
undoubtedly  a  puppet  in  Bismarck's  hands. 
Whether  he  was  conscious  or  unconscious  of  his 
vile  part  in  the  drama  matters  little.  He  was  an 
explicit  agent  of  Prussia  whether  intentional  or  un- 
intentional. He  was  the  same  Prim  whom  we 
know  already,  then  a  marshal  and  head  of  the 
provisional  government  of  Spam. 

It  is  another  ominous  coincidence  that  he  who 
acted  for  Bismarck's  obvious  policy  in  1870  was 
Prim  whom  we  saw,  nine  years  earlier,  command- 
ing the  Mexican  Expedition. 


54        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

Who  can  believe  that  the  man  who  so  dexterously 
served  the  Prussian  interests  in  1870  had  not  served 
them  equally  well  in  Mexico,  in  1861?  He  then 
attached  the  French  to  Mexican  soil  by  mili- 
tary operations.  Who  will  not  suspect  that  he 
was  then  serving  Bismarck's  intentions  of  throwing 
France  later  into  an  imbroglio  with  the  United 
States? 

What  use  the  Boche  made,  in  America,  of  the 
stupid  Mexican  intervention  of  Napoleon  III  to 
support  the  Austrian  prince  is  easy  to  conceive! 
The  case  was  bad  enough  in  itself,  but  it  was  made 
still  infinitely  worse  by  the  simultaneous  and  con- 
venient culture  of  irritating  microbes! 

GRANT'S  FRIENDSHIP  FOR  GERMANY 

Inl  871,  General  Grant,  President  of  the  American 
Republic,  gave  an  historical  expression  of  the  bad 
feelings  generated  against  France  by  sending  to 
Congress,  ten  days  after  the  surrender  of  Paris  to 
the  Germans,  a  message  extolling  the  friendship  of 
the  United  States  for  the  German  Empire.  He 
considered  the  constitution  of  the  new  empire  as  a 
replica  of  that  of  the  United  States.  He  wrote 
that  in  the  German  Empire  the  head  of  the  State 
would  have  the  power  necessary  for  a  defensive  war 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama        55 

but  not  the  authority  necessary  for  a  war  of  con- 
quest!* 

It  is  clear  that  the  terms  employed  in  the 
message  demonstrate  the  influence  of  the  German 
propaganda.  The  President  of  the  United  States 
covers  with  his  high  authority  and  believes  in  the 
mendacious  Boche  statement  of  German  love  for 
peace  and  of  German  organization  for  fighting 
exclusively  Defensive  Wars. 

Victor  Hugo  replied  by  a  beautiful  piece  of 
poetry  which  can  be  read  in  "L'Annee  terrible" 
and  which  is  entitled  "Le  message  de  Grant" 
("Grant's  message.") 

We  can  scarcely  believe  that  such  a  situation 
has  ever  been  created  between  the  two  nations 
which  seem  to  have  been  always  linked  by  the 
closest  bonds  of  friendship. 

It  is  necessary  to  remember  this  historical  fact 
in  order  to  avoid  similar  dangers  in  the  future  and 
to  keep  the  eyes  open  on  the  Boche. 

The  Franco-American  friendship,  founded  by  the 


'Extracts  from  the  message  of  President  Grant  to  the  Senate  and  to  the  House  of 
Representatives,  dated  February  7,  1871: 

"The  union  of  the  States  of  Germany  into  a  form  of  government  similar  in  many 
respects  to  that  of  the  American  Union,  is  an  event  that  cannot  fail  to  touch  deeply 
the  sympathies  of  the  people  of  the  United  States.  .  .  . 

"The  local  governments  of  these  several  members  of  the  union  are  preserved,  while 
the  power  conferred  upon  the  chief  imparts  strength  for  the  purposes  of  self-defence  with- 
out  authority  to  enter  upon  wart  of  conquest  and  ambition." 


56        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

common  sacrifices  of  the  soldiers  of  Washington 
and  of  Lafayette,  seemed  in  1871  eclipsed  for- 
ever. 

It  had  disappeared  behind  the  cloud  of  poisoned 
gases  emitted  by  Prussian  diplomacy.  The  same 
gases,  about  half  a  century  later,  were  identi- 
fied during  the  Great  War  in  the  correspondence 
between  Berlin  and  both  Mexico  and  Tokio.  That 
time  the  victim  of  the  imbroglio,  then  in  course  of 
preparation,  was  to  be  the  United  States  in  order 
to  keep  her  out  of  the  European  war. 

If  these  infamous  conspiracies  to  stir  up  trouble 
between  America  and  Mexico  or  Japan  had  been 
carried  out  "without  leaving  traces"  of  their 
origin,  they  could  have  been  denied — with  charac- 
teristic German  indignation;  but,  unfortunately  for 
the  plotters,  the  activities  of  the  American  police 
seized  and  exhibited  the  threads  of  the  Boche 
spider's  web! 

We  can  say  to-day:  "The  same  methods  have 
always  been  in  use  for  the  promotion  of  Prussian 
politics."  We  can  express  the  following  recom- 
mendation for  the  future: 

In  every  internal  or  external  difficulty  involving 
a  nation  which  is  or  may  be  antagonistic  to  Germany, 
look  for  the  skilful  and  adroit  Boche  hand.  You 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama        57 

will  always  see  it  preparing  and  paving  the  way 
for  the  next  German  aggression. 

MEXICO  THE  ANTECHAMBER   OF   THE   WAR    OF    1870 

The  Boche  triumph  of  1870-71  was  prepared  by 
the  Mexican  Expedition  of  1861  and  the  Mexican 
Empire  of  1863.  The  momentous  consequences 
of  that  expedition  were  twofold;  one  injuriously 
affected  the  exterior,  the  other  the  interior  equili- 
brium of  the  French  nation.  It  destroyed  the 
friendship  of  America  for  France  and  shook  the 
confidence  of  France  in  herself. 

When  the  United  States  emerged  from  the 
Civil  War  she  turned  against  France  and  demanded 
the  immediate  withdrawal  of  her  troops  from 
Mexico.  It  was  legitimate,  it  was  justified  after 
the  commission  of  the  stupid  act  of  the  French 
Emperor.  This  act  had  not  been  inspired  by  any 
unfriendliness  to  America,  but  it  was  represented  as 
such  by  the  active  German  propagandists  working 
in  the  United  States. 

The  withdrawal  of  the  French  troops — which 
were  the  only  support  of  the  fragile  throne  of 
Maximilian — had  the  sinister  consequence  which 
everybody  knows. 

This  tragic  episode  practically  dismantled  the 


58        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

moral  armature  of  France.  She  was,  from  that 
moment  on,  beaten  in  advance.  She  had  lost 
the  esteem  of  her  historical  friend.  She  felt  that 
the  dishonour  of  defeat  was  hanging  on  her.  She 
had  lost,  with  the  sense  of  her  moral  integrity,  her 
confidence  in  herself,  that  most  indispensable 
element  of  victory.  Boche  psychology  had  won 
the  war  against  France — thanks  to  the  Boche- 
suggested  Mexican  Expedition — long  before  a  gun 
was  fired  on  the  Rhine. 

Those  who,  like  me,  have  seen  with  their  eyes 
the  catastrophe  of  1870-71,  never  will  forget  the 
tragic  spectacle. 

What  remains  engraved  in  my  memory  is  the 
indescribable  difference  between  what  history 
showed  us  about  the  invasion  of  1814  and  what  we 
saw  during  the  invasion  of  1870.  Though  ex- 
hausted by  a  war  which  had  practically  lasted  a 
quarter  of  a  century,  France  in  1814  had  confidence 
in  herself  and  was  proud  of  herself. 

In  1870  she  had  lost  both  confidence  and  pride, 
thanks  to  the  devilish  campaign  prepared  before 
the  actual  war  by  the  Boche  intriguer. 

For  the  new  aggression  which  Prussia  had 
devised  for  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century  Panama  was  to  play  the  part  that 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama        59 

Mexico  had  played  for  preparing  the  aggression 
of  1870. 

The  wrecking  of  the  great  enterprise  and  the 
cunning  distillation  in  France  of  the  most  wicked 
accusations  against  every  man  holding  a  prominent 
position  were  meant  to  destroy  the  confidence  of 
the  nation  in  herself. 

War  is  the  period  of  life  of  the  societies  of  men, 
when  the  nervous  system  of  collectivity  works 
at  the  highest  tension.  If  the  centres  of  organiza- 
tion and  of  command  have  lost  control  of  the  parts 
of  the  body  which  normally  obey,  if  these  parts  are 
no  more  disciplined,  victory  cannot  result. 

Such  was  the  fatal  situation  that  the  Boche  had 
created  in  France  over  the  Panama  affair.  He  had 
utilized — as  he  always  cleverly  does — the  mental 
weaknesses  or  intellectual  errors  of  his  enemies. 

Panama  was  to  be  the  antechamber  of  the  ag- 
gression planned  for  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth 
century  as  the  Mexican  Expedition  had  been  the 
antechamber  of  the  aggression  of  the  second  half 
of  the  nineteenth.  Let  us  see  how  that  scheme 
failed. 


CHAPTER  VI 

The  Boche  conspiracy  in  France  (1888-1892)  to  wreck 
the  Panama  Canal  in  order  to  create  the  depressed 
state  of  mind  necessary  for  the  premeditated  aggression 

AFTER  the  collapse  of  the  Panama  enterprise  in 
1889, 1  saw  clearly  the  vital  importance  for  France 
of  saving  from  final  failure  the  great  work  under- 
taken. Its  political  importance  always  was  in  my 
mind,  after  the  suspension  of  the  work,  very  much 
beyond  the  limits  of  the  interest  it  deserved  as  a 
gigantic  industrial  undertaking. 

When  I  saw,  with  unutterable  sorrow,  the  de- 
struction of  the  enterprise  by  the  very  agencies 
that  ought  to  have  sustained  and  defended  it — 
Parliament,  Press,  Justice — I  constantly  suspected 
that  some  nefarious  and  concealed  influence  was 
at  work.  I  saw  the  havoc  created  by  the  most 
extraordinary  display  of  fanaticism  against  French 
interests  that  France  has  ever  seen  developed  on 
her  own  soil.  I  was  convinced  that  France  would 
die  of  her  self-inflicted  wounds  were  Panama  not 

60 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama        61 

saved  from  the  infamous  grave  which  political 
passion  had  opened  at  a  foreign  instigation. 

I  was  convinced  that  if  France  should  passively 
witness  the  final  collapse  of  what  had  cost  her  so 
much  blood  and  so  much  gold,  she  would  be  during 
a  long  time  incapacitated  for  a  new  war.  And  it 
was  obvious  that  the  war  was  coming  and  that 
Prussia  was  preparing  the  final  act  of  the  gradual 
conquest  of  the  world  begun  in  1619. 

I  always  clearly  and  definitely  saw  that  the 
fate  of  France  was  linked  with  that  of  Panama, 
because  that  enterprise  was  a  part  of  her  honour 
and  of  her  heart. 

In  the  book  I  published  in  1913,  one  year  before 
the  war:  "Panama;  The  Creation,  the  Destruc- 
tion, the  Resurrection,"*  I  wrote  in  the  dedication 
to  my  children: 

No  nation,  any  more  than  a  man,  can  live  without 
honour.  It  needs  to  materialize  in  the  form  of  an 
absolute  faith  in  a  certain  number  of  superior  men. 
Otherwise  no  moral  life  is  possible  for  it.  Once  calumny 
has  persuaded  a  nation  that  she  has  been  deceived  in 
her  ideal,  that  those  whom  she  was  wont  to  admire  are 
only  worthy  of  scorn,  a  great  disaster  has  befallen  her. 


This  book,  which  gives  the  complete  history  of  the  Panama  Canal,  was  published 
in  French  by  Plon  Nourrit  &  Cie.,  Paris,  and  in  English  by  Constable  &  Co.,  Ltd., 
London,  and  Robert  M.  McBride  &  Co.,  New  York. 


62        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

She  is  prostrated  like  a  mother  who  has  lost  faith  in 
the  honour  of  her  sons. 


It  is  this  prostration  which  had  seized  France 
after  the  Mexican  Expedition.  It  is  in  view  of 
causing  this  same  prostration  that  the  intrigues  of 
the  Boche  had  led  the  weak-minded  emperor, 
Napoleon  III,  into  the  wasps'  nest  of  Mexico. 
France,  once  caught  in  the  Mexican  trap,  had  not 
been  able  to  extricate  herself  without  losing  a  part 
of  her  honour,  that  is  to  say  of  her  very  capacity  of 
waging  a  victorious  war. 

It  is  the  same  prostration  which  the  sinister 
diplomacy  of  the  Boche  employed  to  seal  the 
doom  of  the  Panama  Canal  thirty  years  later.  It 
certainly  determined  the  failure  of  the  Panama 
enterprise  and  later  cunningly  encouraged  the  de- 
velopment of  political  passions  around  the  great 
fallen  undertaking. 

THE  MINE  UNDER  THE  PANAMA  COMPANY  IN  1888 

It  is  known  that  the  financial  fall  of  the  Panama 
Canal  was  caused  in  1888  by  a  criminal  Bourse 
manoeuvre.  The  false  news  of  the  death  of  Ferdi- 
nand de  Lesseps  was  wired  all  over  France  on  the 
day  of  the  great  subscription  of  lottery  bonds  for 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama        63 

720  million  francs.  The  success  of  the  subscrip- 
tion would  have  ensured  the  completion  of  the 
Canal  in  1891,  without  the  slightest  doubt,  accord- 
ing to  the  plans  I  had  laid  down  and  to  the  regular 
enforcement  of  the  construction  rules  resulting 
from  an  experience  extending  over  more  than  seven 
years.  The  subscription  was  stopped  by  the  false 
news.  Only  a  little  more  than  a  third  of  the 
necessary  total  was  subscribed.  The  smews  of  the 
great  undertaking  had  been  suddenly  cut  and  it 
soon  after  fell  to  the  ground. 

There  is  little  doubt  that  the  reptilian  funds 
of  Germany  were  employed  to  cause  a  disaster 
which  so  well  served  the  plan  to  weaken  France 
for  the  German  aggression  then  in  course  of 
preparation. 

It  is  still  less  doubtful  that  through  the  numer- 
ous channels  which  the  Boche  employed  in  Finance 
and  Press  he  could  sow  calumny,  fan  the  agitation, 
and  bring  it  to  an  unexampled  intensity. 

To  be  sure  99  per  cent,  of  the  men  who  in  France 
played  the  detestable  game  of  politics  against  their 
country's  interests  never  knew  what  master  they 
were  serving.  Spasmodically  as  much  as  stupidly 
they  denounced  Panama  as  a  demonstrated  im- 
possibility. It  never  entered  their  minds  that  they 


64        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

were  destroying  France  for  the  benefit  of  the 
Kaiser  of  Germany  and  at  his  instigation. 

THE  PART  OF  ERNEST  JUDET  IN  1892 

During  these  nefarious  ten  years  extending 
from  1889  to  1899  I  tried  by  every  conceivable 
means  to  open  my  country's  eyes  to  what  was  so 
obviously  clear  to  myself. 

In  vain  were  my  efforts. 

At  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century,  however, 
it  became  possible  to  lift  the  veil — a  little.  The 
pressing  need  of  a  canal  across  the  Central  Amer- 
ican isthmus  had  been  demonstrated  by  the  voyage 
of  the  Oregon  around  South  America  from  San  Fran- 
cisco to  Santiago  de  Cuba,  during  the  Spanish  War. 

Everybody,  the  world  over,  then  supposed  that 
the  Nicaragua  Canal — the  old  American  solution 
of  the  problem — would  be  carried  out. 

I  determined  thenceforth  to  centre  my  efforts 
toward  the  adoption  of  Panama  by  the  United 
States. 

The  task  seemed  impossible  of  achievement! 

After  I  had  succeeded,  after  the  great  conception 
of  French  genius  had  been  resuscitated,  I  was  the 
object  of  renewed  attacks  from  those  who  had 
assassinated  it. 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama        65 

The  most  bitter  attack  came  from  a  journalist 
called  Ernest  Judet.  He  had  always  been  held  as 
the  principal  tool  in  the  hands  of  those  who  effected 
the  ruin  of  the  Panama  enterprise  by  bringing 
about  the  monstrous  prosecution  against  its  crea- 
tors, Ferdinand  and  Charles  de  Lesseps. 

As  Judet  was  indicted  for  high  treason  (on 
the  23rd  of  August,  1919),  it  is  apropos  here  to 
reproduce  the  passages  of  the  French  editions  of 
my  book  published  in  1913,  about  the  part  he 
played  in  1892.  It  will  show  an  almost  unknown 
page  of  the  great  international  drama  of  which 
Panama  was  the  centre. 

The  prosecution  against  Ferdinand  and  Charles 
de  Lesseps  was  ordered,  against  the  opinion  and  the 
report  of  the  Attorney  General  of  the  Paris  Court 
of  Justice,  by  Minister  of  Justice  Ricard,  on  the 
15th  of  November,  1892. 

On  page  131  of  the  French  edition  of  my  book 
appears  the  following  sentence: 

Suddenly,  on  the  10th  of  November,  1892,  on  the  eve 
of  the  day  when  M.  Ricard  answered  the  Attorney 
General  in  terms  rendering  the  prosecution  inevitable, 
a  surprising  article  appeared  in  the  Petit  Journal.  It 
was  entitled:  "We  must  see  clear." 

On  the  same  page  appears  also  this  footnote: 


66        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

There  will  be  found  in  Appendix  C  the  reprint  from 
the  Siecle  of  June  17, 1906,  of  a  letter  which  I  had  di- 
rected a  few  days  before,  about  this  nefarious  article 
of  November  10, 1892,  to  its  signatory  M.  Judet  who, 
in  1906,  had  become  director  of  the  Eclair. 

I  am  now  to  reproduce  the  attack  which  M. 
Judet  made  in  the  Eclair  against  me  for  having 
rescued  Panama  and  obtained  its  adoption  by 
America.  My  letter  exposing  his  sinister  acts  of 
1892  follows.  The  indictment  of  Judet  for  high 
treason;  the  fact  that  he  left  France  in  the  most 
anguishing  part  of  the  war  just  before  the  German 
attack  of  the  21st  of  March,  1918,  against  the 
British  Fifth  Army,  and  just  before  the  begin- 
ning of  the  bombardment  of  Paris  by  long-range 
guns;  the  fact  that  he  then  took  a  permanent 
residence  in  Switzerland  and  never  came  back  to 
the  place  of  honour  and  danger  (that  is  to  France), 
give  a  striking  actuality  to  the  acts  of  Judet  in  1892 
as  exposed  by  my  letter  of  1906  which  follows. 

On  June  9, 1906,  the  Eclair  published  the  follow- 
ing article: 

THE   BANKRUPTCY   OF   PANAMA 

There  are  dead  that  come  back. 

I  have  read  the  following  lines  in  a  morning  paper: 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama        67 

About  two  hundred  persons  have  met  at  a  banquet,  at  the 
Elysee  Palace  Hotel,  to  celebrate  the  work  accomplished  at 
Panama  by  M.  Philippe  Bunau-Varilla  and  offer  him  a  medal 
by  Chaplain  which  has  been  very  much  admired. 

M.  de  Lanessan  was  presiding  at  this  friendly  banquet. 
The  former  minister  pronounced  a  very  eloquent  speech  in 
which  he  retraced  the  qualities  of  dogged  energy  thanks  to  which 
a  Frenchman  has  been  able  to  reconstitute,  after  twenty  years 
of  effort,  an  enterprise  which  had  seemed  to  be  lost  forever. 

M.  Philippe  Bunau-Varilla  expressed  his  thanks  with  deep 
emotion  and  exposed,  with  a  clearness  which  very  much 
impressed  his  audience,  the  plans  which  must,  if  the  United 
States  adopt  them,  definitively  ensure  the  success  of  the  Inter- 
oceanic  Canal. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  know  the  names  of  these 
two  hundred  persons  who  have  given  themselves  the 
trouble  of  celebrating  the  greatest  defeat  of  France 
since  Fashoda. 

M.  Phillipe  Bunau-Varilla  .  .  .  was  a  remark- 
able engineer.  It  is  even  probable  that  his  technical 
ideas  on  the  cutting  of  the  Isthmus  of  Panama  are 
among  the  boldest  and  the  most  practical.  So  much 
the  better  for  the  United  States  if  she  adopts  his  system. 
From  that  point  of  view  M.  Philippe  Bunau-Varilla 
is  a  good  American.  But  nobody  ought  to  speak  decently 
of  a  French  interest  in  this  affair. 

We  ought  not  to  forget  that  at  the  end  of  1903,  the 
undertaking  of  Ferdinand  de  Lesseps,  conceived  and 
created  by  our  nation,  partly  made  with  our  money* 
could  still  remain  our  personal  property.  The  Wash- 
ington Government  grabbed  it,  thanks  to  a  legerdemain, 


68        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

which  left  in  the  hands  of  the  shareholders  a  ridicu- 
lous tip  but  which  took  away  from  them,  with  their 
capital,  a  property  of  inestimable  value,  which  threw 
us  away  from  the  Isthmus,  where  we  had  planted  our 
flag  for  Civilization  and  for  Humanity. 

The  history  is  not  yet  written  of  the  scandalous  intrigues 
which  preceded  the  staged  insurrection  of  Panama,  the 
dismemberment  of  Colombia,  and  the  formation  of  a 

REPUBLIC  PROVIDENTIAL  FOR  MR.  ROOSEVELT. 

It  made  a  reality  of  the  old  dream  of  the  Yankees. 
They  wanted  the  military  domination  of  the  Isthmus — 
the  monopoly  of  the  maritime  canal  which  was  to  ensure 
them  the  supremacy  in  the  world's  competition  from 
the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific.  They  are  the  masters. 

France  was  beaten  in  that  tragical  comedy  which  was 
played  at  the  cost  of  all  her  interests — thanks  to  our 
interior  party  divisions — through  the  surrender  of  our 
foreign  policy. 

Now  that  we  have  been  cast  aside;  now  that  the  grab- 
bing has  been  consummated,  why  should  we  triumph 
if  the  Americans  use  for  their  exclusive  advantage  the 
works  to  be  carried  out  in  the  places  from  where  we  are 
expropriated?  It  is  easy  to  explain  the  historical 
reasons  of  the  disaster,  but  how  can  we  glorify  an  ir- 
reparable weakness? 

We  must  not  at  least  present  to  foreign  nations  who 
deride  us  the  spectacle  of  a  retreat  devoid  of  glory  and 
of  childish  haste  to  transform  it  into  a  victory. 

There  is  more  dignity  in  keeping  silent,  in  studying, 
in  patiently  awaiting,  some  other  revenge. 

ERNEST  JUDET. 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama        69 

Such  was  the  hypocritical  expression  of  opinion 
of  the  man  who  fourteen  years  earlier  had  signed 
the  article  which  had  killed  the  Panama  enterprise 
and  who  eleven  years  later  left  France  at  the  mo- 
ment of  supreme  danger,  when  the  fact  of  going 
away  to  inhabit  a  foreign  neutral  country  was  a 
veritable  civic  desertion  and  who,  to-day,  indicted 
for  high  treason,  has  not  come  back  to  face  the 
accusation. 

I  answered  this  base  article  by  the  letter  which 
follows,  and  wherein  will  be  found  exposed  the 
"enemies  of  Panama,"  whom  we  may  now  call  by 
their  names:  "the  Boches." 

Paris,  June  12, 1906. 
To  M.  ERNEST  JUDET 

Chief  Editor  of  the  Eclair 

Paris. 

In  the  autumn  of  1892  the  destiny  of  the  immortal 
conception  of  Panama  was  in  the  balance.  Its  develop- 
ment had  been  stopped  for  three  years.  It  had  been 
paralyzed  when  we  were  approaching  the  goal,  when  an 
effort  of  secondary  importance  remained  to  be  made  to 
secure  to  France  the  honour  of  having  cut  the  two 
isthmuses  of  the  planet  and  of  having  opened  the  eastern 
gate  of  the  Pacific,  as  she  had  already  done  previously 
with  its  western  gate. 
It  was  necessary  to  know  whether  the  opinion  of  the 


70        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

people  would  be  concentrated  on  this  luminous  aim, 
whether  a  new  call  for  energies  and  interests  would 
decide  the  scientific  battle  against  the  impossible,  and 
give  to  France  at  the  same  time  a  property  at  least 
equal  to  that  of  Suez  multiplied  by  three,  that  is  a 
property  of  a  value  of  two  billion  dollars. 

The  judicial  enquiry  had,  after  various  hesitations, 
determined  in  the  mind  of  the  magistrate,  then  occupy- 
ing the  post  of  attorney  general  of  the  Court  of  Paris, 
the  final  opinion  that  no  misdemeanour  of  any  kind 
could  be  established  against  the  management  of  the 
old  Company.  He  assumed  responsibility  for  this 
decision. 

This  was  putting  an  end  to  the  period  of  anguish 
which  had  followed  the  stoppage  of  the  work.  This 
was  permitting  the  bankers,  the  engineers,  to  resume 
the  half-accomplished  task  and  to  finish  it  within  three 
or  four  years. 

All  those  whom  the  honour  of  their  country  and  the 
love  of  the  French  name  were  inspiring  waited  with 
anxiety  for  this  hour  of  deliverance — the  hour  of  work 
and  action. 

Those,  on  the  contrary,  for  whom  patriotism  is  but 
a  vain  and  deceiving  tag;  the  soldiers  who  throw  down 
their  weapons  in  the  midst  of  the  battle  and  leave  the 
front  to  bring  to  trial  a  quartermaster  who  has  not 
caused  sugar  and  coffee  to  be  issued  in  time;  those  were 
not  willing  that  the  bell  calling  them  back  to  work 
should  be  rung;  all  these  wanted  to  raise  a  hue  and  cry 
and  engender  a  hysterical  and  monumental  scandal. 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama       71 

A  minister  of  justice  mortally  wounded  in  its  head 
the  Panama  undertaking  by  ordering  a  criminal  prosecu- 
tion of  its  living  symbol,  the  glorious  but  unfortunate 
Ferdinand  de  Lesseps. 

He  substituted,  at  the  same  time,  his  personal  de- 
cision for  that  of  the  responsible  head  of  the  prosecution, 
the  Attorney  General,  his  subordinate,  and  for  that  of 
the  responsible  head  of  the  French  policy,  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  Republic,  his  superior. 

But  this  minister  needed  for  carrying  out  this  act  to 
be  supported  by  what  is  usually  called:  public  opinion. 

You  were  in  these  days,  M.  Judet,  at  the  head  of  an 
organ  of  the  press  then  enjoying  unlimited  power. 

It  is  this  organ,  the  Petit  Journal,  which,  in  an  article 
that  has  remained  famous,  gave  to  that  minister 
the  support  necessary  to  write  on  the  following  day, 
on  the  llth  of  November,  his  letter  to  the  Attorney 
General,  which  rejected  this  magistrate's  conclusions, 
and  ordered  a  prosecution  which  dishonoured  the 
Standard  of  Panama  and  thereby  destroyed  all  hope 
of  ever  seeing  this  great  work  completed  by  France. 

This  nefarious  article  had  for  its  prelude  a  deceiving 
and  illusory  appeal  for  the  completion  of  the  works.  It 
was  but  a  tricky  and  seducing  piece  of  rhetoric  which 
aimed  at  concealing  from  public  indignation  the  real 
aim,  the  political  aim. 

Such  was  your  part  at  this  historical  moment!  It 
is  you  who  loaded  the  anarchist  bomb  which  was  to 
destroy  the  fortune  of  six  hundred  thousand  honest 
people  in  order  to  give  substance  to  the  complaint  of 


72        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

four  share-  or  bond-holders;  which  was  to  plunge  France 
into  an  unnamed  anguish,  to  make  of  the  word 
"Panama"  a  symbol  of  infamy,  to  wrap  the  noble  his- 
tory of  the  glorious  struggles  on  the  Isthmus  in  the 
shroud  of  a  contemptible  legend  made  of  the  misdeeds 
of  a  few  scoundrels  emptying  on  the  battlefield  the  pock- 
ets of  the  dead  fallen  from  the  ranks  of  the  great  and 
victorious  army  of  Science  which  they  followed  like 
wolves. 

I  have,  sir,  learned  from  my  childhood  to  consider 
the  service  of  France  as  the  most  enviable  thing  which 
may  fill  the  career  of  a  man,  if  that  service  consists  in 
real  facts  and  not  in  the  emission  of  empty  and  sonorous 
words.  I  graduated  from  the  Ecole  Polytechnique  with 
its  motto  engraved  in  the  heart:  "For  Country, 
Science,  and  Glory." 

I  have  never  for  one  minute  stopped  acting  to  dam 
that  current  of  error  which  was  carrying  away,  piece 
by  piece,  this  precious  structure  cemented  by  the  blood 
and  the  savings  of  our  country — this  current  which  you 
had  let  loose. 

I  have  acted  by  every  means  that  a  man  can  use — 
by  the  speech,  by  the  pen,  by  the  deeds. 

While  yet  there  was  time,  in  the  spring  of  1901,  when 
it  still  would  have  been  possible,  by  a  rapid  and  supreme 
effort,  to  open  the  Canal  before  the  time  limit  granted 
by  the  concessionary  laws — that  is  before  the  autumn 
of  1904 — I  published  two  appeals  to  the  Nation — one 
in  April,  one  in  May,  1901,  in  order  to  show  her  the 
truth  and  the  way. 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama       73 

I  published  these  appeals  in  all  the  newspapers  of 
France,  and  paid  for  their  publication  as  if  they  had 
been  simple  advertisements.  The  most  important 
press  organ — at  the  head  of  which  you  then  were — • 
published  them  as  did  the  other  papers. 

If  the  prelude  of  your  article  of  1892  had  been  sincere, 
you  would  have  acted  then,  but  the  hand  which  was 
editing  the  first  page  of  the  paper  was  not  offered  to  the 
hand  which,  on  the  last  page,  was  begging  help  and  sup- 
port for  salving  the  gigantic  moral  and  material  French 
interest  at  the  supreme  and  last  hour  when  it  was  still 
physically  possible,  which  salvation  ought  to  have  made 
every  French  heart  beat  with  enthusiasm. 

Nobody  dared  to  advance  at  my  side  on  this  lake 
of  mud  which  had  been  formed  by  the  unchained  tor- 
rent of  human  wickedness. 

I  continued  my  solitary  work  and  in  December,  1901, 
in  a  third  appeal — also  printed  in  the  daily  papers — I 
showed  that  only  one  road  remained  open:  that  of  the 
sale  to  the  United  States. 

Your  paper  this  time  also  published  my  appeal, 
and  again  the  first  page  remained  dumb  to  the  appeals 
of  the  last  page.  You  persisted  in  your  silence.  This 
silence  was  intended  to  continue  to  conceal  the  crime 
against  France,  committed  in  1892.  You  thought  then 
that  this  corpse  would  never  speak,  which  you  are  sur- 
prised to  see  emerging  from  the  grave  that  you  dug  for  it. 

My  inexorable  determination  and  my  unshakable 
fidelity  have  illumined  again  the  life  of  the  child  of 
French  genius  at  the  moment  when  it  seemed  to  be  ex- 


74        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

tinguished  forever,  and  I  have  been  happy  enough  to 
.secure  its  adoption  by  the  great  sister  republic  beyond 
!the  Atlantic. 

It  may  be  convenient  for  you,  sir,  in  order  to  forget 
your  responsibilities,  to  affect  to-day  a  patriotic  sorrow 
and  to  depict  the  victory  in  America  of  the  French  idea 
of  Panama  over  the  American  idea  of  Nicaragua  as  a 
prearranged  comedy.  Why  did  you  not  so  describe  it, 
if  you  thought  it  so,  when  the  battle  was  going  on? 

What  would  a  man  of  good  faith  think  of  this  asser- 
tion when  reading  the  conclusions,  in  1876,  of  the  in- 
vestigations undertaken  by  the  American  Government 
at  the  end  of  seven  years  of  surveys  and  explorations  in 
all  parts  of  the  Isthmus?  He  would  see  there  that 
among  all  the  inter-oceanic  highways  the  Nicaraguan 
one  is  proclaimed  by  the  Commission  formed  in  1869 
by  President  Grant  as  the  one  presenting  least  difficul- 
ties and  the  greatest  facilities  both  for  construction  and 
for  operation. 

This  was  written  at  a  time  when  the  field  was  en- 
tirely free;  when  the  initial  elementary  conception, 
which  was  later  on  to  be  transformed  into  the  Panama 
undertaking,  was  not  yet  born  in  the  brain  of  the 
Geographic  Society  of  Paris;  and  when,  consequently, 
no  rivalry  could  be  accused  of  influencing  the  scales  of 
technical  justice. 

What  will  that  man  of  good  faith  think  when  he  sees 
the  vote  on  the  Spooner  Bill,  on  the  19th  of  June,  1902, 
in  the  Senate  of  Washington,  and  which  gave  preference 
to  the  Panama  route  over  that  of  Nicaragua?  The 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama        75 

ii  decision  would  have  been  contrary  if  four  senators 
i!  less,  of  the  ninety  members  of  that  high  assembly, 
i  had  been  won  to  the  idea  of  Panama  by  my  inceasing 
i  demonstrations,  to  which  the  eruption  of  Mont  Pelee 
;  furnished  a  terrible  materialization. 

Four  senators  less  in  favour  of  Panama,  and  the  adop- 
tion of  the  Nicaraguan  route — already  voted  for  in  the 
preceding  January  by  all  but  two  of  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives— would  have  become  an  accomplished 
fact. 

It  may  be  convenient  for  you,  sir,  now  that  the  work 
of  error  and  calumny  is  consummated — so  far  as  con- 
cerns the  material  interests  of  France — to  anathematize 
the  Panama  Revolution,  as  well  as  the  treaty  which  I, 
as  the  Minister  Plenipotentiary  of  the  new  Republic, 
have  signed  with  the  United  States,  and  to  depict  this 
diplomatic  act  as  spoliating  France ! 

What  will  this  man  of  good  faith  think  when  reading 
the  discussions  before  the  Colombian  Senate  during  the 
summer  of  1903  which  preceded  the  revolution?  He 
will  see  there  that  the  Hay-Herran  Treaty  was  rejected 
which  authorized  the  French  Company  to  sell  its  prop- 
erty to  the  United  States.  He  will  see  there  the  mani- 
festation of  the  will  to  consider  as  null  and  void  the 
prorogation  of  six  years,  to  date  from  1904,  granted  to 
that  company  by  the  Executive  power  without  author- 
ity from  the  Legislative  power. 

The  lack  of  ratification  in  1903  of  that  prorogation 
was  equivalent,  for  the  French  people,  to  the  whole 
loss  of  all  their  rights  of  property  on  the  works  already 


76        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

carried  out,  on  the  plant  and  on  the  concession  from 
the  autumn  of  1904. 

As  all  the  billions  of  the  earth  could  not  have  opened 
the  Canal  in  one  year,  I  have  the  right  to  say  that  the 
Revolution  of  Panama  and  the  Hay-Bunau-Varilla 
Treaty,  for  which  I  claim  entire  responsibility,  saved 
at  least  forty  million  dollars  to  France. 

But  they  saved  something  infinitely  more  precious, 
it  is  the  undertaking  itself  of  Panama.  It  is  easy  to 
see  that  because,  after  the  rejection  of  the  Hay-Herran 
Treaty  by  Colombia,  the  Spooner  Law  made  it  an  imper- 
ative, explicit,  and  formal  obligation  to  the  Executive 
power  of  the  United  States  to  construct  the  Nicaragua 
Canal. 

The  loveless  marriage  of  the  American  nation  with 
the  foreign  solution  of  Panama  was  already  gladly 
greeted  as  dissolved.  The  Nicaragua  Canal — which 
the  celebrated  American  financier  Vanderbilt  had  begun 
in  1850  and  which  was  ever  afterward  recommended  by 
all  the  American  commissions  as  the  superior  solution; 
which  was  constantly  greeted  by  the  unanimity  of  the 
press  and  of  the  political  world  as  the  national  solu- 
tion— was  going  to  enter  its  hour  of  triumph. 

The  Panaman  Revolution  has  changed  that  hour 
of  triumph  into  an  hour  of  final  defeat,  and  the  final 
defeat  of  Nicaragua  into  the  permanent  and  eternal 
triumph  of  the  French  idea  of  Panama.  Simultane- 
ously with  the  revivification  of  the  generous  French 
creation,  the  honour  of  the  scientific  genius  of  our 
country  became  safeguarded.  It  would  have  been 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama        77 

besmirched  by  the  final  sterility  of  this  great  national 
effort.  It  will  radiate  more  luminously  than  ever  by 
this  historic  demonstration  of  the  height  and  of  the 
surety  of  its  conceptions. 

Those  who  acclaim  this  triumph  of  the  Scientific 
Truth,  served  by  the  hearts  and  the  brains  of  France 
for  twenty-six  years,  are  those  whose  consciences  are 
filled  by  sincere  love  of  France.  Those  who  deplore 
it  are  those  for  whom  this  love  is  but  an  empty  figure 
of  speech — hollow  as  well  as  deceiving — or  those  whom 
this  love,  if  it  be  sincere,  oppresses  with  the  crushing 
remorse  of  the  past. 

I  conclude  in  begging  you,  sir,  to  receive  the  expres- 
sion of  the  sentiments  which  this  letter  sufficiently 
translates,  and  in  inviting  you  to  insert  it  in  answer  to 
your  article  of  June  9th  published  in  the  Eclair,  this  in 
conformity  with  the  mandates  of  the  law,  expressing 
my  obligation  to  pay  the  legal  price  for  the  surplus  of 
the  insertion. 

P.  BUNAU-VARILLA. 


When  Judet  received  the  letter  he  immediately 
declared  in  his  paper  that  he  was  going  to  publish 
it.  He  wrote  on  the  15th  of  June,  1906: 

This  letter  furnishes  us  with  too  good  an  opportunity 
to  explain  ourselves.  We  will  not  deprive  our  readers 
of  that  pleasure.  Their  curiosity  shall  not  be  disap- 
pointed. 


78        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

But  the  curiosity  of  Judet's  readers  was  disap- 
pointed. He  never  dared  to  publish  a  line  of  my 
letter  nor  to  oppose  the  formal  indictment  it  con- 
tained of  having  wilfully  and  hypocritically  ruined 
the  Panama  enterprise  for  a  secret  interest. 

THE   INDICTMENT   OF  JUDET   FOR   HIGH   TREASON 

A  question  remained  open. 

For  whose  interest  had  Judet  worked?  Had  he 
destroyed  with  his  anarchist  bomb  the  great  and 
glorious  enterprise  of  Panama;  had  he  dishon- 
oured Ferdinand  and  Charles  de  Lesseps,  the 
engineers  of  France,  her  men  of  science,  her 
political  men;  had  he  ruined  600,000  families; 
had  he  sown  distrust  and  ill-will  in  the  whole  na- 
tion for  the  internal  and  infernal  political  ambition 
of  a  party  excited  by  Boche  intriguers  unknown  to 
him?  Had  he  committed  the  still  infinitely  more 
odious  crime  of  stabbing  France  in  the  back — 
knowingly — for  the  interest  of  Germany?  Had  he 
committed  this  crime  in  order  to  effect — know- 
ingly— the  enfeeblement  of  France  and  to  weaken 
,  her  resistance  to  the  next  great  German  attack? 

The  last-mentioned  hypothesis  was  so  horrible 
that  I  never  dared  to  express  it,  and  I  now  still 
ask  the  reader  to  postpone  his  final  judgment  until 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama        79 

the  sentence  of  the  court  martial  shall  have  pro- 
nounced on  the  accusation  of  high  treason  brought 
against  Ernest  Judet. 

This  indictment  has  evoked  the  publication  by 
the  press  of  documents  which,  if  corroborated, 
prove  that  he  had  relations  with  Germany  at  the 
very  beginning  of  the  war.* 

This  despatch,  if  expressing  the  truth,  would 
demonstrate  that  Judet  was  disposed  to  betray  at 
the  very  outset  of  hostilities.  Its  tone  also  implies 
the  fact  that  Judet  was  not  then  for  the  first  time 
at  the  Service  of  Germany. 

The  trial  will  clear  the  matter  from  which  will 
result  the  answer  to  the  question:  In  wrecking 
the  Panama  Canal,  in  1892,  was  Judet — knowingly 
or  unknowingly — the  instrument  of  the  Boche  in 
Paris? 


The  Petit  Parisien  published  on  the  26th  of  August  the  following  despatch,  dated 
Berlin,  December  11,  1914,  from  Von  Jagow,  German  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs, 
to  Von  Lancken,  former  Councillor  of  the  German  Embassy  in  Paris,  and  then  in 

Brussels. 

"According  to  news  from  Switzerland,  public  opinion  must  be  less  favourable  to  us 
than  four  weeks  ago.  A  revulsion  of  feeling  might  be  hoped  only  after  greater  suc- 
cesses of  Germany  and  better-prepared  propaganda.  I  would  like  to  win  Judet  for 
this  task.  He  first  rejected  the  offers  made  by  an  intermediary  but  finally  he  con- 
sented to  the  following  conditions.  As  he  would  have  to  abandon  the  direction  of  his 
paper,  which  represents  a  sum  of  one  and  a  half  million  francs  and  as  he  is  risking 
his  fortune  amounting  to  half  a  million,  he  asks  for  two  million  francs.  For  this 
sum  he  would  place  at  our  disposal  all  his  power. 

"This  figure  seems  to  me  absurdly  high.  I  beg  you  to  make  known  your  opinion. 
I  stay  here  till  Monday." 

"JAQOW." 


80        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 


'  But  a  fact  of  the  highest  importance  for  con- 
temporary history  remains:  the  wrecking  of  the 
Panama  enterprise  by  the  Judet  article  in  1892— 
after  its  stranding  by  the  bourse  manoeuvre  of 
1888 — was  the  fruit  of  Boche  conspiracy.  It  was 
evolved  in  view  of  the  onslaught  projected  for  the 
beginning  of  the  twentieth  century  just  as  the 
conspiracy  for  establishing  an  empire  in  Mexico 
was  a  preparation  for  the  attack  of  1870  on  France. 


CHAPTER  VII 

Campaign  in  America  against   the   Nicaragua    Canal 
to  countercheck  the  Boche  conspiracy  to  annihilate 
the  Panama  Canal. 

IF  I  worked  with  all  the  fibres  of  my  heart,  all 
the  cells  of  my  brain,  for  the  resurrection  of  Pana- 
ma, it  is  because  I  felt  the  hand  of  the  Boche 
behind  the  whole  affair.  I  saw  that  it  was  a  con- 
spiracy against  France,  and  I  thought  that  the 
eventual  ruin  of  the  enterprise  would  be  the  fore- 
runner of  the  ruin  of  France  herself. 

Thanks  to  George  Morrison  and  Burr  in  the  field 
of  technical  science;  thanks  to  Hanna  and  Herrick 
in  the  field  of  national  politics;  thanks  to  Roosevelt, 
Hay,  and  Loomis  in  the  final  and  eruptive  phase 
of  international  politics,  it  has  been  possible  to 
paralyze  the  dastardly  Boche  plot. 

THE   STRUGGLE   AGAINST   THE  NICARAGUA   CANAL 

Everybody  will  now  understand  why  I  fought 
so  desperately  to  counteract  the  construction  of 

81 


82        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

the  Nicaragua  Canal  and  why  I  strove  so  hard  to 
have  the  Panama  solution  vindicated  by  its  adop- 
tion. I  was  then  fighting  for  France,  as  much  as 
for  the  United  States,  against  the  Boche.  It  was 
indeed  the  prelude  of  the  Great  War.  The  strate- 
gical positions  to  be  occupied  were  to  be  of  the 
greatest  moment  for  the  outcome  of  the  war  it- 
self. 

If,  as  every  consideration  made  it  probable,  the 
Nicaragua  Canal  had  been  carried  out,  the  object 
of  the  web  of  the  Boche  conspiracy  would  have  been 
attained.  The  rejection  of  the  Panama  solution 
by  a  nation  celebrated  for  its  practical  mind  and 
sound  judgment  would  have  been  held  as  a  brilliant 
justification  of  the  spreaders  of  calumnies  made  in 
Germany. 

These  calumnies  would  have  taken  a  renewed 
force  and  France  would  have  been  convinced  that 
they  were  the  formal  expression  of  the  truth. 
She  would  have  considered  herself  wholly  betrayed 
by  all  her  superior  classes.  She  would  have  lost 
entirely  all  confidence  in  the  genius,  in  the  sagacity, 
in  the  sincerity  of  her  legislators,  her  engineers, 
her  financiers.  She  would  have  been  brought  to 
that  state  of  mind  which  the  consequences  of  the 
Mexican  Expedition  had  determined  in  preceding 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama       83 

generations.  She  would  have  been  like  the  France 
of  1870 — the  victim  of  that  nefarious  depression. 

One  may  imagine  with  what  intensity  of  senti- 
ment I  entered  the  field  of  a  battle  from  which 
was  to  result  either  the  destruction  or  the  salvation 
of  France.  The  strain  on  my  vitality  produced 
by  this  extraordinary  stake  magnified  the  energy 
of  my  mind  and  the  acuteness  of  my  senses. 

The  battle  royal,  which  lasted  three  years, 
ended  with  the  triumph  of  Panama,  and  its  adop- 
tion by  the  United  States.  In  the  book  published 
in  1913,  to  which  I  have  already  made  reference, 
I  have  related  in  minute  detail  all  the  phases  of  the 
struggle;  but  I  refrained  from  mentioning  whom  I 
thought  to  be  the  prime  movers  of  the  destruction 
of  Panama.  I  simply  called  them  the  "enemies 
of  the  Canal." 

Now,  however,  I  can  call  them  by  their  name 
because  the  war  has  shown  the  underground 
activity  of  the  Boches  in  all  questions  where 
their  political  interest  is  involved. 

If  I  had  said  in  1913  what  I  am  writing  now,  I 
should  have  been  regarded  as  a  dangerous  dis- 
turber of  the  peace — of  that  peace  for  the  preserva- 
tion of  which  Germany  constantly  declared  she 
acted  as  a  guardian  angel.  She  counted  on  the 


84        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

imbecility  of  her  neighbours  who  never  gave  a 
thought  to  her  bloody  record  of  conquest  which 
Prussia  pursued  for  three  hundred  years  (since 
1619). 

To-day  the  war  has  torn  aside  the  veil  with 
which  Boche  duplicity  concealed  its  operations 
from  the  eye  of  the  casual  onlooker.  One  knows 
now  the  principal  weapon  used  by  the  Boche  dur- 
ing the  periods  of  peace — his  moral  poisonous  gas 
— it  is:  Calumny.  It  is  with  this  moral  gas  that 
all  the  criminal  attempts  of  the  Boche  have  been 
made  in  times  of  peace. 

BIGELOW'S   LETTER   TO    SECRETARY   HAY 

At  the  end  of  the  year  1898  two  of  my  most 
sincere  and  devoted  friends  had,  on  my  advice, 
made  important  suggestions  to  the  Government  of 
the  United  States. 

One  of  them,  the  Hon.  John  Bigelow,  was  an 
ex-minister  plenipotentiary  of  the  United  States 
to  the  Court  of  the  Tuileries.  He  was  the  highest 
and  most  noble  type  of  the  American  gentleman 
of  the  second  half  of  the  nineteenth  century.  He 
wrote  to  the  Secretary  of  State,  John  Hay,  coun- 
selling him  not  to  make  a  rash  decision,  as  every- 
body else  had  urged  him  to  do,  about  the  construe- 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama        85 

tion  of  the  Nicaragua  Canal,  before  investigating 
Panama. 

John  Hay  had  been  the  personal  secretary  of 
Lincoln,  and,  after  the  great  President's  cowardly 
assassination,  was  sent  to  Paris  as  secretary  of 
embassy.  There  he  placed  his  brilliant  intellect 
and  his  noble  heart  at  the  service  of  his  country 
under  the  orders  of  John  Bigelow.  Though  thirty- 
five  years  had  elapsed  since  that  remote  period  the 
authority  of  Mr.  Bigelow's  mind  had  not  decreased 
in  John  Hay's  estimation.  The  opinions  he  ex- 
pressed were  always  carefully  considered  by  his 
former  subordinate.  There  is  not  the  slightest 
doubt  that  Mr.  Bigelow's  letter  had  very  much  to 
do  with  President  McKinley's  ultimate  decision  on 
this  momentous  question. 

Simultaneously  another  friend  of  mine,  Com- 
mander [now  Captain]  Asher  Baker  of  the  United 
States  Navy,  after  many  conferences  with  me  in 
Paris,  was  called  to  Washington  on  official  business. 

He  took  advantage  of  his  numerous  and  impor- 
tant connections  in  the  capital  to  promote  the 
cause  of  Panama,  in  which  he  firmly  believed.  In 
particular  he  conferred  with  the  Speaker  of  the 
House — Read — and  with  the  chairman  of  the 
Committee  of  Ways  and  Means — Joe  Cannon — 


86        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

the  two  most  influential  men  in  Congress  at  that 
moment.  He  did  in  the  Legislative  branch  of  the 
Government  what  Mr.  Bigelow  had  done  in  the 
Executive  branch. 

THE  WALKER   COMMISSION 

This  double  and  capital  diplomatic  move,  which 
I  had  started  from  Paris,  yielded  enormous  con- 
sequences. A  resolution  was  adopted  by  Con- 
gress ordering  a  double  technical  enquiry  to  be 
made,  not  only  in  Nicaragua  but  in  Panama,  when 
the  session  was  to  be  closed  and  when  the  unani- 
mous opinion  was  favouring  Nicaragua. 

For  the  first  time  in  ten  years  the  name  of 
Panama  was  emerging  from  the  heap  of  calumnies 
and  abuses,  made  in  Germany,  which  had  doomed 
it  in  the  eyes  of  the  world. 

The  commission  in  charge  of  the  investigation 
was  formed  of  the  best  engineers  of  the  United 
States  under  the  presidency  of  Admiral  Walker. 

None  of  them,  when  he  assumed  his  office,  thought 
Panama  deserved  the  slightest  amount  of  atten- 
tion. Everyone  believed  that  Nicaragua  was  the 
perfect,  the  ideal  solution.  But  as  the  law  required 
an  investigation,  they  performed  it  thoroughly 
and  a  delegation  was  sent  to  Paris. 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama        87 

I  met  there  three  of  the  delegates,  very  promi- 
nent men  all  of  them:  George  Morrison,  then  con- 
sidered as  the  greatest  American  railroad  bridge 
engineer;  William  H. Burr, a  most  eminent  engineer 
and  Professor  of  Engineering  at  the  Columbia 
University;  and  Lt.-Colonel  of  Engineers  Ernst, 
of  the  American  army. 

I  undertook  to  transform  the  notions  they  had 
gathered  from  the  universal  opinion  then  prevail- 
ing. I  gave  them — in  support  of  my  optimistic 
assertions  about  the  magnificent  solution  offered 
by  Panama  and  my  pessimistic  denunciations 
about  the  detestable  one  at  Nicaragua — a  book  I 
had  written  eight  years  before:  "Panama;  le 
passe — le  present — FaveUjr."  (Masson,  Editeur.) 

"Burn  this  book,"  I  said,  "and  hold  me  for  a 
man  without  honour  if,  during  your  investigations, 
you  find  one  statement  which  is  not  borne  out  by 
facts.  But  if  you  find  every  word  of  it  confirmed 
by  what  you  see,  then  you  must  follow  its  con- 
clusions, adopt  Panama,  and  reject  Nicaragua." 

When  my  three  eminent  new  friends  left  Paris 
a  large  hole  had  been  made  in  the  dam  of  prejudice 
then  existing  against  Panama  in  their  minds — 
as  in  everybody's.  This  hole,  I  might  say,  was 
particularly  large  in  Morrison's  and  Burr's  minds. 


88        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

It  was  the  first  attack  against  official  prejudice 
built  up  by  the  campaign  of  calumnies  initiated 
by  Boche  agencies.  This  prejudice  was  to  crumble 
under  my  repeated  blows  and  under  the  light 
thrown  on  the  matter  by  the  investigations  of  men 
of  accomplished  talent  and  of  strict  conscience. 

At  the  end  of  1900  a  preliminary  report  was 
made  which,  though  still  recommending  Nicaragua, 
showed  that  the  initial  faith  in  that  project  was 
dangerously  punctured. 

SPEECHES  IN  AMERICA  IN  FAVOUR  OF  PANAMA 

At  the  end  of  December,  1900,  I  received  by 
cable  an  invitation  of  the  Commercial  Club  of 
Cincinnati,  signed  by  Messrs.  Taylor  and  Wulsin, 
to  speak  before  the  club  on  the  Canal  problem. 
I  accepted  it  immediately. 

I  sailed  early  in  January,  1901,  for  New  York  to 
go  and  attack  the  enemy  on  his  own  ground. 

I  knew  how  difficult  it  is  for  a  technical  corn- 
mi  ;sion  to  go  against  the  unanimous  wishes  of 
press  and  public  opinion.  I  wished  to  create  a 
public  opinion  in  favour  of  Panama  or  at  least  to 
conquer  for  the  Panama  side  men  who  could  com- 
mand public  opinion.  This,  I  thought,  was  a 
sine  qua  non  of  the  final  and  complete  exterioriza- 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama       89 

tion  of  the  pro-Panama  ideas  which  I  had  sown  in 
the  minds  of  several  of  the  commissioners.  I 
therefore  spoke  in  many  cities,  before  audiences 
completely  surprised  to  hear  expounded  anything 
about  the  Isthmian  canal  which  was  in  favour 
of  Panama. 

At  first  reluctant  to  admit  what  I  affirmed  they 
— without  a  single  exception — came  round  and 
fully  understood  the  hitherto-unrealized  objections 
to  Nicaragua  and  the  unknown  advantages  of 
Panama. 

CONSEQUENCES  OF  INVITATION  OP   COL.   HERRICK 

Among  these  meetings  the  one  that  had  the 
greatest  consequences  took  place  at  Cleveland, 
Ohio,  on  the  invitation  of  Col.  Myron  T.  Herrick. 

This  eminent  man  was  afterward  to  become  Gov- 
ernor of  Ohio  and,  later,  Ambassador  to  France. 
He  displayed  in  Paris,  during  the  march  of  the 
Germans  toward  that  capital,  magnificent  qualities 
of  sang  froid  and  generous  devotion  to  duty 
which  made  him  the  object  of  the  everlasting 
gratitude  of  the  French  people.  He  was  already, 
in  1901,  a  prominent  personality  in  Ohio  and  the 
intimate  friend  of  President  McKinley  and  also  of 
the  celebrated  Senator  Hanna. 


90        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

Around  the  club  table,  where  he  invited  me  to 
sit  at  luncheon,  were  twenty  prominent  men  of 
Cleveland,  all  of  them  friends  of  Senator  Hanna. 

After  the  luncheon  my  expose  began,  at  about 
1  p.  M.  It  was  about  5.30  p.  M.  when  it  ended. 
Every  part  of  the  great  problem  had  been  thor- 
oughly examined.  I  had  removed  from  the  minds 
of  my  host  and  of  his  guests  all  trace  of  pro- 
Nicaraguism. 

As  all  of  them  formed  the  group  of  men  among 
whom  Hanna  lived,  when  in  Cleveland,  this  day 
gave  me  indirectly  an  important  command  on  the 
opinion  of  the  all-powerful  Senator. 

"What  is  the  matter?"  Hanna  asked  Herrick, 
some  days  later;  "Cleveland  has  become  a  Panama 
town!" 

Herrick  explained,  and  Hanna  expressed  the  de- 
sire to  confer  with  me  on  this  all-important  sub- 
ject. 

It  was  perhaps  the  only  way  to  obtain  access  to 
his  mind,  surrounded  as  he  was  by  an  army  of 
people  trying  to  obtain  his  support  for  their  own 
political  interests  or  individual  aspirations.  Un- 
der these  conditions  to  get  a  hearing  from  Hanna 
was  equivalent  to  a  high  probability  of  victory. 
Hanna's  opinion  exerted  a  great  influence  on  that 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama        91 

of  the  President  and  on  that  of  the  Republican 
party  which  then  was  in  overwhelming  majority 
in  both  Houses  of  Congress. 

I  met  the  great  Senator  several  times  in  Wash- 
ington and  there  I  completed  his  conversion  to 
Panama. 

I  was  also  received  by  President  McKinley 
thanks  to  an  introduction  offered  to  me  by  Mr. 
Dawes,  Comptroller  of  the  Treasury.  He  was 
a  personal  friend  of  the  President.  Many  years 
later  I  again  met  Mr.  Dawes,  as  a  brigadier 
general,  in  Paris  where,  during  the  war,  he  rendered 
the  greatest  services  to  the  American  army,  and 
consequently  to  the  common  cause  of  the  Allies. 

Having  fully  accomplished  my  task  I  returned 
to  Paris,  certain  of  having  placed  the  great  Panama 
enterprise  on  the  high  road  to  recovery. 

ARTICLES   IN   THE    FRENCH    PRESS 

While  travelling  back  home  I  asked  myself 
whether  I  did  not  owe  it  to  France  to  tell  her  all 
about  the  Panama  situation. 

The  new  Panama  Canal  Company  had  always 
observed  a  passive  attitude,  and,  by  its  cowardly 
demeanour,  encouraged  the  worst  suppositions 
as  to  the  possibility  of  ever  completing  the  Canal. 


92        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

I  decided  to  make,  at  my  own  expense,  this 
proclamation  of  facts  which  it  had  been  the  duty 
of  the  Company  to  do,  but  which  it  had  shirked. 

I  published  in  all  the  newspapers  of  France  two 
articles,  each  one  covering  almost  an  entire  page, 
explaining  the  Panama  situation. 

I  strongly  urged  a  bold  return  to  the  task  of 
finishing  the  great  undertaking  for  the  honour 
and  for  the  profit  of  those  who  had  begun  the  dig- 
ging. 

I  concluded: 

I  have  now  finished  my  task  and  I  have  done  my 
duty.  Let  everybody  in  his  turn  do  his  by  expressing 
his  opinion  with  complete  frankness  through  one  of  the 
two  ways  I  have  indicated. 

Let  the  advice  of  the  Lion  or  the  advice  of  the  Hare 
be  listened  to  and  therefrom  let  a  solution  be  arrived  at. 
The  one  to  which  I  am  opposed — that  whispered  by  the 
Hare — I  still  prefer  infinitely  to  that  lethargy  the  end 
of  which  is  death:  She  of  the  two  mothers  who,  at  the 
tribunal  of  Solomon,  preferred  abandoning  her  child  to 
strange  hands  rather  than  see  him  perish,  was  the  veritable 
mother. 

Whatever  may  come  from  my  last  effort  I  shall  have 
satisfied  my  conscience.  Even  if  my  voice  remains 
without  an  echo,  it  will  never  be  possible  to  say  that 
not  a  single  citizen  of  France  has  risen  to  point  out  the 
road  that  should  be  followed. 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama       93 

At  all  events  before  the  sacrifice,  before  the  solution 
of  despair  I  showed  in  advance  as  far  back  as  1892,  I 
shall  have  established  for  contemporary  history  the 
balance  sheet  of  this  tragedy  of  mendacity  and  calumny. 
/  shall  have  fixed  the  figure  of  the  ransom  that  the  coun- 
try is  paying  to  its  victorious  internal  enemy;  to  the 
parricidal  son  who  stabs  the  country's  great  men  and  sets 
fire  to  the  structures  their  genius  has  erected  for  her  glory 
and  her  welfare;  to  the  traitor  who,  during  the  battle,  sows 
panic  in  rear  of  the  army  and  by  falsehood  and  slander 
prevents  a  rally  so  that  the  true  cause  of  the  rout  may  not 
be  exposed  and  so  that  he  may  draw  an  infamous  profit 
from  the  ruins  he  has  brought  about. 

I  have  said  my  say. 

P.  BUNAU-VARILLA. 


I  published  these  two  appeals  to  the  belief  in 
truth,  to  the  contempt  for  calumny,  to  the  energy 
of  creation  of  my  compatriots,  the  first  on  the  25th 
of  April,  the  second  on  the  10th  of  May,  1901.  I 
refused  to  contemplate  asking1  the  hospitality  of 
any  paper.  I  went  to  an  advertising  agent  and 
requested  him  to  pay  for  the  publicity.  It  cost 
me  $21,559. 

This  figure,  better  than  any  demonstration, 
shows  that  it  was  the  knowledge  of  a  grave  danger 
for  France  that  inspired  my  acts.  Here  is  an 
important  sum  which  could  never  be  repaid  to  me 


94        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

by  anybody  under  any  form.  It  was  spent  for 
no  personal  business  purpose.  It  was  therefore 
a  sacrifice  prompted  solely  by  what  I  considered 
the  importance  to  France  of  seeing  the  Panama 
enterprise  rescued  from  the  marsh  of  infamy  and 
degradation  into  which  calumny  had  made  it 
sink. 

This  shows  materially  how  convinced  I  was  that 
France,  through  the  situation  thus  created,  was 
exposed  to  the  risk  of  losing  the  moral  equilibrium 
necessary  in  case  of  a  German  attack. 

CONSEQUENCES    OF   THE   AMERICAN   ADOPTION 

When  I  wrote  these  appeals  I  desired,  above  all 
things,  the  completion  of  the  Canal,  because  I 
thought  that  it  was  the  only  thing  which  could 
restore  to  France  confidence  in  herself  and  the 
high  esteem  of  her  own  power  and  grandeur.  I 
desired  at  that  moment  that  France  should  roll 
her  sleeves  up  and  conclude  her  task  because  it 
was  the  most  noble  way. 

I  was  wrong  then,  and  I  think  now  that  the  bet- 
ter solution  for  France  was  to  see  the  Canal  finished 
by  the  United  States.  This  spectacle  was  to  give 
her  just  as  much  confidence  in  herself  as  if  she  had 
completed  the  work.  But  this  solution  was  to 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama        95 

introduce  into  the  question  a  new  element  of  in- 
finite importance:  America's  friendship  for  France 
and  confidence  in  her  genius. 

The  acquisition  of  the  Panama  enterprise  by 
America  was  to  generate  feelings  of  the  most  mo- 
mentous political  importance.  They  were  to  be 
the  initial  factors  of  the  two  great  contributions 
of  America  to  the  salvation  of  the  world  which 
were:  first,  the  delivery  of  munitions  of  war  to 
the  Allies  from  the  outset  of  the  conflagration,  and 
second,  the  military  association  with  them  in  the 
last  period  of  the  war. 

I  was  wrong  to  desire  the  completion  by  French 
capital,  because  infinitely  greater  and  happier 
consequences  were  automatically  to  attend  the 
completion  by  America.  It  was  the  life  of  France 
that  was  saved  by  this  solution  at  the  cost  of  a  loss 
of  some  billions  of  francs. 

I  do  not,  however,  regret  having  then  made  a 
supreme  effort  for  completion  by  a  French  com- 
pany. It  was  the  solution  of  the  Lion;  and  no 
Frenchman  can  be  justified  in  proposing  to  France 
the  solution  of  the  Hare. 

After  that  solemn  and  universal  declaration  I 
had  freed  my  mind.  I  was  thenceforth  relieved 
of  the  immediate  moral  obligation  of  working  for 


96        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

the  completion  of  the  Canal  by  the  French  owners. 
I  had  only  one  task  to  accomplish:  it  was  to  save 
the  noble  conception  of  French  genius  through 
its  adoption  by  America.  I  could  concentrate 
on  that  great  ambition  all  my  mental  faculties. 

The  completion  of  the  Canal  by  the  United 
States  from  that  time  on  excluded  all  sources  of 
material  profits  for  the  French  owners  which  would 
have  resulted  from  the  prosecution  of  the  works  by 
a  French  company. 

But  the  counterpart  of  that  material  loss  was  a 
flow  of  moral  and  political  profits  infinitely  more 
valuable.  They  were  bound  to  result  from  that 
association  of  the  French  genius  with  the  American 
genius.  The  very  preservation  of  the  life  of  France 
was  to  be  the  final  consequence. 

HOW  THE  OFFER  OF  $40,000,000  WAS  DETERMINED 

I  thought  that  the  conquest  to  the  cause  of 
Panama  of  a  man  like  Hanna,  and  the  deep  im- 
pression made  by  my  various  public  demonstra- 
tions, had  ensured  a  decision  in  favour  of  Panama. 
Having  opened  the  way,  and  being  sure  of  the 
final  opinion  of  the  great  engineers  of  the  Isthmian 
Canal  Commission,  I  expected  the  new  Panama 
Canal  Company  to  do  the  rest. 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama       97 

But  it  did  not. 

Surprised  by  a  success  which  it  did  not  ex- 
pect, the  Board  of  Directors,  instead  of  acting, 
began  to  talk.  Frightened,  most  probably  by 
its  responsibility,  it  did  not  dare  to  fix  a  price 
which  might,  later  on,  be  an  eternal  reproach  to  its 
lack  of  energy. 

This  inexplicable  attitude  on  the  part  of  the 
Company  began  to  generate  very  bad  feelings 
among  the  few  but  powerful  friends  I  had  con- 
verted in  America  to  Panama.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  situation  of  the  Company  was  obviously 
desperate  as  it  was  under  threat  of  the  cancellation 
of  its  concessions  by  Colombia  within  three  years. 
Its  attitude  in  refusing  to  propose  a  price  for  its 
properties  while  asking  America  to  buy  them 
seemed,  consequently,  to  cover  a  treacherous  game 
and  reinforced  the  powerful  party  of  the  Nica- 
raguans. 

The  situation  was  summed  up  by  the  Sun,  in 
one  of  its  terse  and  luminous  editorials  which  have 
made  that  paper  famous,  on  the  28th  of  December, 
1901.  It  read: 

PANAMA 

If  the  representatives  of  the  French  shareholders 
desire  to  obtain  from  Congress  consideration  of  a  rea- 


98        The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

sonable  proposition  to  sell  out  to  this  Government,  and 
if  they  have  an  attractive  proposition  to  offer,  the  swift- 
est ship  that  crosses  the  Atlantic  is  none  too  fast  for 
their  service  at  this  time. 

Perhaps  the  last  opportunity  of  Panama  has  already 
gone.  Certain  it  is  that  with  every  week  and  day  it  is 
going.  .  .  . 

The  only  move  that  can  now  gain  a  hearing  for  the 
Panama  route  must  be  nothing  short  of  Napoleonic  in 
conception  and  execution. 


At  the  very  moment  the  Sun  was  publishing 
the  above  editorial  in  New  York  I  was  deciding 
to  resort  to  moral  violence  on  the  Board  of  the 
Company  to  force  a  decision  on  its  part. 

As  the  Board  dared  not  speak,  I  spoke  in  all  the 
newspapers  of  Paris  for  the  third  time. 

On  January  1,  1902,  appeared  a  new  article 
which  formed  an  adjunct  to  those  of  April  25  and 
May  10,  1901.  I  paid  for  its  publication,  as 
advertisement,  the  sum  of  $5,970,  which  must  be 
added  to  the  $21,559  which  I  had  disbursed  for  the 
two  preceding  ones. 

In  that  article  I  fixed  the  sale  price  of  the  Canal 
property  at  $40,000,000.  I  urged  the  sale  to  the 
friendly  United  States  with  all  the  vigour  at  my 
command. 


BThe  Great  Adventure  of  Panama        99 
I  began  by  recalling  the  closing  portion  of  the 
latter  of  the  first  two  articles : 

She  of  the  two  mothers,  who  at  the  Tribunal  of 
Solomon,  preferred  abandoning  her  child  to  strange 
hands  rather  than  see  him  perish,  was  the  veritable 
mother. 

In  conclusion  I  wrote,  speaking  of  the  realiza- 
:ion  of  the  Nicaragua  Canal — if  Panama  failed 
be  adopted  by  America: 

That  would  be  a  material  loss  of  enormous  propor- 
tions. It  would  be  a  moral  loss  much  greater  still,  be- 
cause the  legend  of  infamy  and  mendacity  which  has  been 
woven  around  the  name  of  Panama,  and  which  would  be 
dissipated  as  its  execution  progressed  even  if  carried  out 
by  a  foreign  nation,  would  be  absurdly  confirmed  by  a  pref- 
erence given  to  the  virgin  project  of  Nicaragua  over  the 
two-thirds-finished  route  of  Panama. 

To  avoid  this  terrible  abyss  it  is  necessary  to  act 
and  to  act  immediately;  the  duty  of  the  Board  is  strictly 
defined  by  facts. 

If  they  have  not  accomplished  it  between  to-day 
and  the  7th  of  January  next  their  responsibility  will  be 
also  explicitly  defined  before  the  people  and  before  the 
law. 

This  publication  entirely  reversed  the  situation. 
Immediately  the  Board  sent  by  cable  an  offer  to 
sell  all  her  property  for  $40,000,000. 


100      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

The  movement  against  the  Nicaragua  Canal 
which  I  had  started  in  America  had  to  be  com- 
pleted in  France  by  starting  a  movement  for  the 
sale  of  Panama  at  a  very  low  price.  In  both  cases 
success  followed  the  initiative. 

The  year  of  1902  began  with  the  wind  blowing 
in  the  sails  of  Panama. 

THE  REASON  OF  AMERICAN  FAITH  IN  NICARAGUA 

The  victory,  however  was  not  won.  Immedi- 
ately after  the  opening  of  the  session  in  the  first 
days  of  January,  1902,  the  House  by  all  but  two 
votes  rejected  Panama  and  adopted  the  Nicaraguan 
project. 

Public  sentiment — the  entire  press,  with  very  few 
exceptions — held  firm  for  Nicaragua. 

An  editorial  of  the  New  York  Herald,  published 
on  January  14,  1902,  gave  a  very  accurate  picture 
of  the  situation: 

As  far  as  can  be  judged  national  sentiment  in  America 
is  unanimous  for  Nicaragua.  Such  unanimity  is  so 
much  more  significant  when  you  think  that  the  Isth- 
mian Canal  Commission  has  frankly  shown  all  the  dis- 
advantages of  the  popular  route. 

All  the  objections  shown  have  been  admitted  by  the 
competent  scientific  authorities,  but  their  weight  is 


The  Great  Adventure,  of.  Pcfrlttwlfy  ;  ; 

nil  if  compared  with  the  instinctive  conviction  so  deeply 
rooted  in  the  American  nation,  that  the  Nicaragua 
Canal  project  is  a  purely  national  affair,  conceived  by 
Americans,  sustained  by  Americans,  and  (if,  later  on, 
constructed)  operated  by  Americans  according  to 
American  ideas  and  for  American  needs.  In  one  word, 
it  is  a  national  enterprise. 

Sentiment  must  be  reckoned  with  in  national  as  in 
private  affairs.  The  American  people  prefer  to  pay 
30  per  cent,  more  for  their  ships  than  would  be  neces- 
sary if  built  in  foreign  countries.  They  prefer  to  pay 
a  surplus  of  30  per  cent,  for  having  a  fleet  that  is  Ameri- 
can from  beginning  to  end.  For  the  same  reason  it  is 
almost  certain  that  if  the  people  were  consulted  on  the 
Canal  question,  they  would  simply  drown  under  their 
vote  the  foreign  canal  and  extol  the  national  canal  in 
spite  of  its  greater  cost.  This  is  demonstrated  by  the 
nearly  unanimous  vote  of  the  House  in  favour  of  Nic- 
aragua. 

The  question  is  this :  Will  the  Senate  be  more  perme- 
able to  foreign  influence? 

The  great  New  York  organ  was  thus  describing 
with  a  mathematical  accuracy  the  nature  and  the 
weight  of  the  argument  in  favour  of  Nicaragua. 
It  is  a  most  eloquent  testimony,  which  can  be  re- 
ferred to  if  people  wish  to  measure  the  tenacity  of 
the  resistance  through  which  I  had  to  break  my 
way. 


t  Adventure  of  Panama 

The  quasi-unanimous  vote  of  the  House  in 
favour  of  Nicaragua,  given  as  soon  as  the  session 
was  open,  did  not  dishearten  me.  In  fact,  nothing 
could  dishearten  me  because  I  was  fighting  against 
what  was  everywhere  considered  as  the  inevitable. 

When  one  thinks  what  was  to  be  the  price 
of  the  victory  in  that  struggle  for  the  realization  of 
the  impossible,  one's  head  begins  to  swim. 

People  can  see  now  that  the  defeat  of  Panama 
would  have  meant  the  triumph  of  the  German 
manoeuvres  for  disheartening  France  and  dissolv- 
ing her  moral  sinews! 

People  can  see  now  that  the  triumph  of  Panama 
has  not  only  restored  to  France  her  control  of 
herself  but  has  established  a  powerful  link  between 
America  and  France! 

People  can  see  now  that  the  outcome  of  the  strug- 
gle was  to  be  the  salvation  of  France  and  the  pres- 
ervation of  the  universe  from  the  yoke  of  Prussian 
slavery. 

And,  seeing  these  things,  it  is  possible  to  judge 
the  perspicacity  of  those  who  wired  to  the  French 
Government  that  my  persistence  in  believing  in 
the  success  of  an  irretrievably  lost  cause  justi- 
fied the  gravest  suspicion  as  to  my  mental  health. 
The  Department  of  Foreign  Affairs  of  France  has 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      103 

this  cablegram  in  its  archives.     It  dates  from  the 
first  months  of  1902. 

One  can  judge  the  gratitude  the  world  owes  to 
Hanna  and  Roosevelt  who  made  the  victory  pos- 
sible in  the  political  and  in  the  diplomatic  fields 
respectively,  and  did  not  believe,  as  the  represent- 
atives of  France  did,  that  my  faith  in  the  triumph 
of  Panama  indicated  a  derangement  of  my  mental 
faculties. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

American  Congress  between  Panama  and  Nicaragua 

THE  battlefield  was'  transferred  during  the  first 
half  of  1902  to  Congress.  It  had  left  the  domain 
of  the  Isthmian  Canal  Commission,  otherwise 
called  the  Walker  Commission  from  its  presi- 
dent's name. 

Thanks  to  Morrison  and  to  Burr  the  cause  of 
Panama  had  won  before  the  Commission  and  that 
route  had  been  unanimously  recommended. 

It  may  be  recalled  that  when  the  Commission  was 
formed,  not  one  of  its  members  had  ever  dreamed 
of  Panama  even  as  of  a  remote  possibility.  The 
same  transformation  was  to  take  place,  in  spite 
of  all  probabilities,  in  the  Senate  and  later  on  in 
the  House  before  the  end  of  the  session  of  1902. 

After  many  weeks  of  examination  of  the  problem 
by  the  Senatorial  Commission  on  Inter-oceanic 
Canals  the  public  debate  was  opened. 

As  I  have  said  already,  the  article  of  the  New 
York  Herald,  which  I  have  reproduced  in  a  previ- 

104 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      105 

ous  chapter,  exactly  expressed  the  state  of  public 
opinion. 

The  cause  of  Panama  was  doomed  if  I  could  not 
demonstrate  to  the  Senate  that  the  question  of 
money  was  not  the  only  one  that  was  to  be  in- 
voked against  Nicaragua.  To  offset  her  enviable 
privilege  of  being  the  half -century-old  choice 
of  the  American  people  there  were  infinitely  more 
powerful  arguments.  They  were  of  two  kinds. 

The  first  kind  bore  on  the  purely  technical  de- 
tails such  as :  number  of  locks,  length  of  sections  of 
difficult  navigation,  sharpness  of  curves,  etc. 

Napoleon  said  that  a  small  sketch  is  better 
than  a  large  report.  Never  was  this  wise  dictum 
more  usefully  put  into  application. 

Demonstration  of  the  superiority  of  Panama 
by  speeches  or  by  reports  was  impossible.  In  a 
political  assembly  nobody  listens  to  a  technical 
speech,  nobody  reads  a  technical  report.  So  I  dis- 
tributed to  every  senator  a  pamphlet  wherein  four- 
teen decisive  arguments  were  advanced  and  of 
which  thirteen  were  accompanied  by  a  diagram; 
there  was  one  diagram  for  each  page. 

One  minute  was  enough  to  look  at  each  page 
and  be  convinced.  In  a  quarter  of  an  hour  the 
plea  was  brought  home. 


106      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

The  second  kind  of  argument — which  I  had 
pressed  against  Nicaragua  as  far  back  as  1892  in 
the  book  I  had  then  published  on  "Panama" — 
was:  volcanic  activity.  This  argument  was  not 
by  itself  easy  to  illustrate  through  a  diagram.  But 
there  happened  an  extraordinary  incident  which 
enabled  me,  however,  to  formulate  it  graphically. 

This  incident  played,  in  the  history  of  the  world, 
a  part  infinitely  greater  than  people  may  imagine, 
because  its  influence  was  paramount  in  the  victory 
of  Panama  before  the  American  Senate. 

I  allude  to  the  eruption  of  Mont  Pelee  in  the 
island  of  Martinique  and  of  the  resultant  destruc- 
tion of  the  prosperous  town  of  Saint-Pierre. 

This  tragic  event — which  has  no  counterpart 
in  the  history  of  Europe,  except  Pompeii  at  the 
beginning  of  the  Christian  Era — occurred  on  the 
sixth  of  May,  1902.  It  was  less  than  a  month 
before  the  beginning  of  the  senatorial  debates 
(2nd  of  June)  on  the  choice  between  Panama  and 
Nicaragua.  I  immediately  sent  to  every  senator 
the  text  of  my  speeches  of  the  previous  year 
wherein  I  had  denounced  in  forceful  terms  the 
volcanic  danger  hanging  over  the  Nicaragua  Canal. 

Another  incident  took  place  which  was  abso- 
lutely disastrous  to  the  partisans  of  Nicaragua. 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      107 

On  the  14th  of  May  a  cablegram  from  New  Orleans 
announced  that  a  part  of  the  Isthmus  of  Nicaragua 
had  been  shaken  by  a  violent  earthquake  on  the 
shores  of  Lake  Managua,  an  annex  of  the  lake  of 
Nicaragua.  It  was  due,  said  the  despatch,  to  an 
eruption  of  Momotombo. 

My  eminent  friend,  Edward  P.  Mitchell,  whose 
brilliant  editorial  pen,  following  that  of  Dana,  has 
given  such  force  and  such  prestige  to  the  Sun, 
wrote  the  crushing  article  which  follows.  Speak- 
ing of  Momotombo  he  said:  "Its  great  voice  has 
uttered  a  warning  of  incalculable  value  to  the 
United  States."  He  supposes  in  the  article  the 
voice  of  Momotombo  addressing  Senator  Morgan, 
the  unflinching  partisan  of  the  Nicaragua  route. 

My  compliments  to  Senator  Morgan.  I  beg  leave  to 
inform  that  gentleman,  and  others  whom  it  may  concern, 
that  I  am  not  only  alive  but  am  capable  of  sending  down, 
without  notice,  through  Lake  Managua,  and  the 
Tipitata  River  into  the  adjacent  lake  of  Nicaragua,  a 
tidal  wave  of  sufficient  volume  and  malignity  to  over- 
whelm any  canal  that  engineering  skill  can  construct 
through  this  country,  and  to  wipe  out  every  dollar  of  the 
two  or  three  hundred  millions  which  the  United  States 
Government  may  invest  within  the  reach  of  the  waters 
subject  to  my  power.  Precisely  the  same  thing  can  be 
done  with  equal  facility,  and  on  equally  short  notice, 


108      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

by  my  neighbours  and  allies  Pilas,  Nindiri,  Zelica, 
Santa  Clara,  Oros,  Isla  Venada,  Fernando,  Mancaron, 
Zapatera,  Mancaroncita,  Madera,  Omotepe,  and  the 
Hell  of  Masaya — any  one  of  them  or  all  combined. 

We  respectfully  enquire  of  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States  whether  Momotombo  did  not  tell  the  truth. 

Naturally  the  gigantic  sensation  created  by  the 
thrilling  and  spectacular  drama  of  Saint-Pierre, 
complemented  by  the  Nicaraguan  earthquakes, 
dominated  the  senatorial  debate.  These  terrible 
manifestations  of  the  earth's  interior  fire  had  come 
just  in  time  to  give  a  tragic  echo  to  everything  I 
had  been  saying  and  writing  for  ten  years. 

Senator  Hanna,  who  played  the  main  part  in  the 
discussion,  was  cartooned  painting  volcanoes  on 
the  map  of  the  Isthmus  guided  by  a  man  wearing 
the  characteristic  costume  of  a  Frenchman — as 
depicted  on  the  stages  of  American  comic  the- 
atres. 

This  portrayed  him  before  the  people  as  a  puppet 
in  the  hands  of  French  intriguers.  Senator  Hanna 
was  particularly  irritated.  It  was  a  staunch  Re- 
publican paper,  the  Evening  Star  of  Washington, 
which  had  stung  him  so  cruelly. 

This  little  episode  shows  how  broken  were  the 
party  lines  on  this  great  question.  It  also  shows 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      109 

how  badly  hurt  by  the  "volcano  argument"  the 
Nicaraguan  party  had  been. 

Feeling  that  their  confidence  of  victory  was 
weakening  they  resorted  to  that  most  dangerous 
of  weapons:  cynical  negation  of  truth. 

Toward  the  end  of  the  debate,  the  President  of 
Nicaragua,  Zelaya,  sent  a  cablegram  addressed 
to  Senor  Corea,  Minister  of  Nicaragua  at  Washing- 
ton, at  the  latter's  request.  Speaking  of  the  earth- 
quake reported  by  the  telegram  of  May  15,  the 
one  resulting  from  the  Momotombo  eruption,  he 
said: 

News  published  about  recent  eruptions  of  volcanoes 
in  Nicaragua  entirely  false. 

Senator  Morgan  presented  to  the  Senate  the 
presidential  telegram  with  a  statement  of  Senor 
Corea  to  the  effect  that  Nicaragua  had  had  no 
volcanic  eruption  since  1835. 

The  vote  was  going  to  be  taken  under  that  falsi- 
fied impression! 

To  overcome  an  official  document — to  demon- 
strate that  what  it  said  was  a  deliberate  and  wil- 
ful fabrication — another  official  document  was 
necessary;  more  than  that,  absolutely  indispensa- 
ble. 


110      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

How  could  I  obtain  it  in  less  than  a  week? 
Nicaragua  was  too  far,  her  authorities  too  ob- 
viously disposed,  to  do  anything  that  might  ensure 
their  victory! 

A  POSTAGE  STAMP  SETTLES  THE  CANAL  ROUTE 

Suddenly  a  flash  revealed  to  me  the  needed 
official  document.  I  had  it  under  my  thumb.  It 
was  a  postage  stamp  representing  a  magnificent 
volcano  belching  forth  smoke  across  the  country. 
At  the  foot  of  the  volcano  was  the  shore  of  the  lake 
where  the  recent  earthquakes  had  taken  place.  The 
smoking  volcano  was  precisely:  "Momotombo." 

The  postage  stamp  officially  gave  the  lie  to  the 
statement  of  the  Nicaraguan  authorities  to  the 
effect  that  "since  1835  no  volcano  had  been  in 
eruption  in  Nicaragua." 

I  immediately  began  to  collect  the  precious 
stamps  in  Washington  and  in  New  York,  and  on 
the  16th  of  June  I  sent  one  of  them,  pasted  on  a 
sheet  of  paper,  to  every  senator. 

On  the  paper  was  printed  the  necessary  explana- 
tion under  the  telling  title:  "An  official  proof  of 
the  volcanic  activity  of  Nicaragua." 

This  was  the  last  shot  of  the  battle.  It  simply 
decided  the  fate  of  this  long  controversy. 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      111 

The  day  following,  Senator  Gallinger  asked  the 
lateif  it  was  reasonable  to  undertake  this  colos- 
work  in  a  country  taking  a  smoking  volcano  as 
emblem  for  its  postage  stamps. 
On  June  19,  1902,  the  bill  giving  preference  to 
'anama    over    Nicaragua — the    Spooner    Bill — 

jed  by  a  majority  of  eight. 

Panama  had  won!     The  adoption  of  the  great 
French  conception,  to  which  was  attached  the  fate 
of  the  world,  had  made  a  first  and  enormous  step. 
I  telegraphed  to  the  Matin  the  great  news  in  the 
following  terms: 

WASHINGTON,  June  19.  After  fifteen  days  of 
desperate  struggle  majority  of  the  Senate,  answering 
the  call  of  Truth  and  Science,  rather  than  that  of  popu- 
lar prejudices  half  a  century  old,  has  adopted  the  Pan- 
ama route,  the  French  project,  in  preference  to  the 
Nicaragua  route,  the  American  project. 

This  memorable  victory  of  French  Genius,  unappreci- 
ated and  proscribed  by  France,  is  the  everlasting  con- 
demnation of  the  calumniators  who  poisoned  public 
opinion  and  thus  excited  a  blind  and  criminal  ostra- 
cism against  the  glorious  conception  of  Panama. 

To-day  we  can  name  these  calumniators.     They 
are:  the  Boches! 
We  know  wherefrom  they  came:  Berlin. 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

We  know  what  was  their  object:  To  create  in 
France  distrust  of  her  government,  of  her  scien- 
tists, of  her  financiers,  of  her  legislators,  of  all  their 
leaders ;  to  create  outside  of  France  contempt  for  a 
nation  described  by  herself  as  fallen  in  a  state  of 
such  imbecility  that  she  could  allow  for  ten  years 
a  gigantic  swindle  to  be  carried  out  under  the  pre- 
tense of  making  a  work  which  was  beyond  the 
power  of  man  to  transform  into  a  reality. 

On  the  19th  of  June,  1902,  the  slender  majority 
of  eight  votes  in  the  American  Senate  was  laying 
the  foundation  of  the  great  monument  of  Franco- 
American  friendship. 

It  is  this  monument  wherein  France  has  found 
the  weapons  with  which  to  defend  not  only  herself 
but  also  the  liberty  of  the  world.  It  is  this  monu- 
ment which  the  adoption  and  the  construction  of 
the  Panama  Canal  has  erected  and  under  the 
shadow  of  which  the  American  legions  were  formed 
which  put  the  Boche  to  final  rout  under  the  leader- 
ship of  Pershing. 

The  man  who  cemented  that  monument  was  a 
great  noble  American  through  whose  heart  flowed 
a  streak  of  French  blood.  It  was  Marcus  A.  Han- 
na,  Senator  of  Ohio.  He  had  acted  on  the  advice 
of  and  in  council  with  Myron  T.  Herrick.  They 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      113 

two  were  the  principal  masons  of  that  epoch- 
making  monument. 

After  the  vote  of  the  Senate  the  House  had  to 
decide  whether  its  vote  for  Nicaragua  at  the  be- 
ginning of  January — unanimous  but  for  two — 
was  to  be  sustained  or  dropped. 

The  general  sentiment  of  the  House  was  still  for 
Nicaragua. 

I  sent  to  every  member  one  of  the  same  stamps 
which  had  produced  such  good  results  on  the 
Senate.  I  was  fortunate  enough  to  be  able  to 
find  in  New  York,  by  searching  various  postage- 
stamp  firms,  the  five  hundred  units  necessary.  I 
came  hastily  back  to  Washington  with  an  equal 
number  of  pamphlets  containing  the  substance  of 
my  speeches  of  1901. 

The  day  following  the  distribution  of  these 
documents  to  all  the  members  of  the  House  a 
strong  wavering  in  the  resistance  to  Panama  was 
apparent.  Soon  after,  on  the  29th  of  June — say 
ten  days  after  the  vote  of  the  Senate  had  been 
taken — the  House  in  its  turn  reversed  almost 
unanimously  its  decision  of  January. 

By  all  but  eight  votes  preference  was  given  to 
Panama,  and  the  Spooner  Bill  became  law. 

That  vote  sounded  the  knell  of  the  sinister  Boche 


114      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

conspiracy  to  demonstrate  to  France  the  decadence 
of  her  genius. 

In  my  book:  "Panama;  the  Creation — the 
Destruction — the  Resurrection,"  will  be  found 
eloquent  expressions  of  the  deep  emotion  French 
hearts  felt  at  seeing  this  memorable  vindication  of 
France. 

It  was  the  first  battle  lost  by  Germany  in  her 
preliminary  operations  for  the  World  War  of  1914. 

Indeed  it  was  the  factor  which  prevented  the 
war  from  bursting  out  three  years  later,  in  1905. 


CHAPTER  IX 

The  Boche  intrigues  in  Bogota  in  1902  to  prevent  the 

adoption  of  Panama  by  the  United  States 

i 

THE  destruction  of  France's  self-confidence  was 
the  aim  of  the  annihilation  of  the  Panama  Canal 
enterprise  in  1892.  The  adoption  of  the  French 
conception  by  the  Congress  of  the  United  States 
on  the  28th  of  June,  1902,  was  a  terrible  German 
check.  The  object  of  the  German  diplomacy  was 
to  prevent  this  adoption  from  the  very  moment  it 
loomed  up  above  the  horizon;  that  is,  from  the 
beginning  of  1902. 

At  the  same  time  a  new  idea  took  form.  It  was 
to  acquire  for  Germany  the  command  of  that 
precious  and  unique  communication  between  the 
Atlantic  and  the  Pacific. 

To  have  the  military  command  it  was  necessary 
to  obtain  somewhere  on  the  Atlantic  coast  a  naval 
base.  The  Venezuelan  coast  was  chosen  as  very 
well  fitted  for  such  a  military  establishment.  To 
have  the  Canal  itself  it  was  sufficient  to  oust  the 

115 


116      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

United  States  from  the  game  by  well-planned  in- 
trigues in  Colombia,  and  to  acquire  from  Colombia 
the  Canal  rights.  True  it  is  that  these  rights  were 
conceded  to  the  French  Company  till  1910,  but  we 
shall  see  how  this  obligation  could  be  annulled 
thanks  to  the  cunning  legerdemain  of  the  Colom- 
bian politicians. 

The  Spooner  Law  ordered  the  adoption  of  Pana- 
ma, provided  that  two  questions  were  solved  be- 
forehand: 

1st.  The  French  Panama  Company  had  to  give 
a  clear  title  for  her  concessions,  properties,  works, 
machinery,  etc. 

2nd.  Colombia  had  to  give  to  the  United  States 
a  concession  for  the  right  of  constructing  and  oper- 
ating the  Canal. 

The  enunciation  of  the  first  condition  was  a 
matter  of  course.  It  was  a  satisfaction  given  to 
the  opposition  which  had  invented  this  absurd 
proposition :  "  The  Panama  Canal  cannot  be  pur- 
chased because  the  Panama  Company  cannot  sell 
her  property  and  give  a  clear  title." 

The  second  condition  was  infinitely  more  serious. 
The  unavoidable  necessity  of  obtaining  a  conces- 
sion from  Colombia  was  giving  the  Boche  the 
needed  opportunity  for  his  intrigues.  He  trusted 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      117 

to  them  to  oust  the  United  States  from  the  Canal 
Zone  of  Panama  and  to  stay  there  himself,  master, 
disguised  under  the  garb  of  Colombian  patriotism. 

VENEZOLANO-COLOMBIAN  INTRIGUES  OF  THE  BOCHE 

But  even  before  the  votes  for  the  Spooner  Law 
(19th-29th  of  June,  1902)  the  astute  Boche  had 
begun  to  cast  his  nets.  From  the  end  of  1901  the 
double-faced  game  was  played  both  in  Colombia 
and  in  Venezuela.  It  had  been  determined  on 
when  the  extraordinary  qualities  of  the  Panama 
solution  had  been  exposed  to  world-wide  publicity 
in  the  course  of  1901.  In  Colombia  the  Boche 
worked  with  that  smooth,  velvety  method  of 
which  he  is  a  past  master  when  trying  "not  to 
leave  any  traces" — according  to  the  Von  Luxburg 
recommendations.  They  worked  so  successfully 
that  many  people  were  lured  into  the  belief  that 
Colombia  had  been  the  victim  in  the  Panama 
matter. 

Readers  of  these  pages  will  be  afforded  a  per- 
sonal opportunity  to  judge  for  themselves  whether 
the  American  Government  did  anything  which  it 
could  regret.  They  will  see  whether  Colombia  did 
not  deserve  to  the  full  the  evils  she  has  suffered. 
They  will  see  whether,  in  that  case,  a  vigorous 


118      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

justice  has  not  acted  hand  in  hand  with  the  best 
interests  of  civilization. 

I  shall  retrace,  later,  the  true  story  of  the  Pana- 
ma negotiations  up  to  the  signature  of  the  Hay- 
Bunau-Varilla  Treaty.  Anybody  wanting  more 
details  will  find  them  in:  "Panama;  the  Creation — 
the  Destruction — the  Resurrection.* 

I  shall  afterward  outline  a  parallel  sketch  of  the 
Venezuelan  incidents  in  which  German  brutality 
was  employed  for  the  same  purpose  as  velvety 
smoothness  in  Colombia. 

COLOMBIA  BEGINS  NEGOTIATIONS 

The  first  negotiations  between  the  United 
States  and  Colombia  began  at  the  same  time  as  I 
launched  my  campaign  of  agitation  in  1901.  The 
Colombian  Government  then  was  eager  to  see 
the  Canal  accomplished,  because  the  Boches  were 
indifferent  to  the  Panama  question  except  for 
wrecking  the  French  enterprise,  and  their  action 
was  not  felt  in  Colombia.  Don  Carlos  Martinez 
Silva  was  sent  as  minister  plenipotentiary  to  Wash- 
ington with  instructions  to  help  as  much  as  pos- 
sible the  adoption  of  Panama  by  the  United  States. 
He  gave  the  new  Panama  Canal  Company  the 

*See  footnote  on  page  61. 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      119 

necessary  authorization  to  open  negotiations  with 
the  American  Government  for  the  sale  of  its  con- 
cessions and  property.  He  himself  tried  to  induce 
the  American  Government  to  select  the  Panama 
solution. 

Martinez  Silva,  Special  Envoy  of  Colombia  to 
Washington  and  important  statesman  of  Bogota, 
thus  formally  initiated,  in  1901,  negotiations  with 
the  United  States.  It  was  in  view  of  bringing  her 
to  abandon  her  national  project  of  Nicaragua  and 
to  undertake  the  completion  of  the  Panama  Canal. 
In  taking  that  step  Colombia  was  pledging  her 
honour  to  carry  out  in  good  faith  the  proposed 
plan  and  fully  to  do  her  share  in  the  necessary 
arrangements  between  herself  and  the  United 
States.  When,  later  on,  under  the  obvious  pres- 
sure of  German  intrigues,  she  abandoned  the  j)ath 
of  sincerity  and  good  faith,  Colombia  took  certain 
risks  which  bad  faith  necessarily  entails. 

As  we  shall  see,  the  revolt  of  Panama  was  a  sin- 
cere and  unanimous  outburst  of  indignation  of  the 
Isthmian  people,  when  crushed  by  the  egoistical 
and  treacherous  policy  adopted  by  Bogota  at  the 
suggestion  of  the  Germans. 

The  action  of  the  United  States  Government 
toward  Panama  after  the  proclamation  of  her  in- 


120      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

dependence  was  a  legitimate  and  honourable  proof 
of  friendship  toward  a  small  but  energetic  nation 
proclaiming  its  right  to  exist. 

It  was  a  legitimate  and  honourable  act  of  the 
United  States  simultaneously  to  uphold  the  prin- 
ciple that  the  construction  of  the  international 
highways  of  commerce  cannot  be  obstructed  by  the 
greed  of  thej>roprietors,  or  of  the  sovereigns  of  the 
territory  through  which  such  highways  must  pass. 

It  was  a  legitimate  and  honourable  act  of  the 
United  States  to  show,  by  her  attitude  toward 
Colombia,  that  the  country  had  forfeited  all  rights 
to  a  friendly  treatment  on  her  part. 

It  was  a  legitimate  and  honourable  act  of  the 
United  States  to  use,  to  their  extreme  limits,  all 
her  treaty  rights: 

1st — To  protect  Panama. 

2nd — To  insure  the  execution  of  a  highway 
made  for  the  use  of  all  nations  under  strictly 
equal  conditions. 

3rd — To  show  to  Colombia  that  weakness  is  no 
justification  for  bad  faith. 

All  the  sophisms  spread  everywhere  by  the  pro- 
German  advocates  of  Colombia  will  never  break 
the  strong  bulwark  of  facts:  It  was  Colombia 
that  in  1901  initiated  the  negotiations  and  offered 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

the  Panama  Canal  to  the  United  States;  it  was 
Colombia  that  later  on,  in  1903,  forfeited  her 
pledge  of  honour,  betrayed  her  word,  and  rejected 
the  Hay-Herran  Treaty  by  which  the  American 
acquisition  was  to  be  carried  out. 

No  excuse  can  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the 
Senate,  and  not  the  Government,  rejected  the 
treaty.  Everybody  knows  that  Colombia  was 
then  a  dictatorial  autocracy,  and  that  the  same 
autocratic  government  was  in  power  in  1901  and 
in  1903. 

If  anybody  had  the  illusion  that  the  elections  in 
Colombia  were  free  and  independent  of  the  Gov- 
ernment, he  can  read  the  official  documents  trans- 
mitted to  the  American  Senate.  He  will  see  there 
that  immediately  after  the  Panama  Revolution 
offers  were  made  by  Bogota  to  ratify  the  Hay- 
Herran  Treaty,  the  same  treaty  which  had  been 
rejected  by  the  so-called  independent  Senate  of 
Colombia. 


GERMAN  INTRIGUES  MODIFY  COLOMBIA  S  ATTITUDE 

In  the  beginning  of  1901,  when  destiny  seemed 
fixed  forever  in  favour  of  the  Nicaragua  Canal,  the 
Boche  had  not  yet  made  any  plans  to  control  the 
precious  transcontinental  water  route.  He  had 


122      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

done  nothing  but  use  his  influence  and  intrigues 
to  wreck  the  French  enterprise  and  to  develop  in 
France  a  hectic  political  fever. 

But  when  I  had  shown  how  the  matter  stood— 
both  in  America  by  the  series  of  my  speeches  and 
in  Europe  by  the  three  appeals  published  in  all 
the  papers  of  France — the  situation  began  to 
change. 

When  in  the  beginning  of  1902  the  unanimous 
recommendation  of  the  Isthmian  Canal  Com- 
mission for  Panama  was  made,  the  German  greed 
had  then  been  already  violently  excited  and  Boche 
action  had  been  prepared. 

The  desire  to  control  the  transcontinental  water 
route  must  then  have  reached  such  proportions  as 
to  become  an  imperious  necessity.  We  all  know 
from  the  solemn  statement  of  Germany's  chan- 
cellor, Bethmann-Hollweg,  before  the  Reichstag  at 
the  beginning  of  the  war  that,  for  the  Boche  moral 
aristocracy,  "necessity  knows  no  law." 

The  Panama  Canal,  then,  having  become  a 
German  necessity ,  neither  law  of  righteousness  nor 
law  of  decency  could  any  longer  be  taken  into 
account. 

Consequently,  the  two  neighbour  countries, 
Venezuela  and  Colombia,  were  simultaneously 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      123 

treated  by  appropriate  methods,  the  former  by 
brutality,  the  latter  by  guile. 

To  Caracas  the  Kaiser  sent  an  ultimatum  as  a 
new  year's  gift  in  December,  1901,  and  sent  his 
men  of  war  to  rove  along  the  Venezuelan  coast. 

To  Bogota  went  sweet,  oily  emissaries  calling  the 
people's  attention  to  the  incalculable  disasters  to 
which  Colombian  honour,  sovereignty,  and  patri- 
otism were  exposed  by  the  proposed  Americaniza- 
tion of  the  Panama  Canal. 

RECALL  OF  MARTINEZ  SILVA — ARRIVAL  OF  CONCHA 

The  following  results  of  this  double  move  were 
soon  apparent: 

In  Caracas,  warlike  attitude  against  Germany 
and  confidence  in  United  States'  help.  In  Bogota, 
recall  of  Martinez  Silva  because  he  was  friendly  to  - 
the  United  States  and  favourable  to  the  American- 
ization of  the  Canal.  His  successor,  Concha, 
arrived  on  February  26,  1902. 

He  was  just  as  hostile  as  his  predecessor  was 
favourable  to  the  transfer  of  the  Panama  Canal  to 
the  United  States. 

The  aggressive  policy  which  began  with  the  end 
of  1901  by  the  ultimatum  to  Venezuela  and  by  the 
decision  of  Colombia  to  recall  Martinez  Silva  is 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

symbolic  of  the  German  action  in  tropical  America. 
Both  aimed  at  the  control  of  Panama  which  was 
later  on  to  be  followed  by  a  complete  establishment 
of  Germany  both  in  Venezuela  and  in  Colombia. 

THE   GERMAN   ASPIRATIONS   FOR   TROPICAL 
TABLELANDS 

Germany's  acts  in  Caracas  and  Bogota  were  the 
offshoots  of  the  German  tropical  policy. 

This  policy  consisted  for  the  New  World  in 
controlling  the  high  plateaux  of  the  Andes  ex- 
tending over  Colombia  and  Venezuela  and  at  the 
same  time  the  precious  connection  between  the 
Atlantic  and  the  Pacific,  the  Panama  Canal.  It 
consisted,  in  Africa,  in  controlling  the  high  plateaux 
between  the  Congo  and  the  Zambesi  and  at  the 
same  time  the  precious  deposits  of  copper  ores 
of  the  Katanga  region,  the  richest  in  the  world. 

Both  these  Venezolano-Colombian  and  Congo- 
Zambesian  plateaux  have  an  altitude  which  com- 
pensates their  latitude.  They  offer  to  the  white 
race  magnificent  zones  of  settlement  and  popula- 
tion. 

The  establishment  of  two  great  German  centres 
of  population  on  the  two  high  Central  American 
and  Central  African  plateaux;  the  consequent 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      125 

control  of  the  natural  passage  between  the  Atlantic 
and  the  Pacific  in  the  first  case  and  of  untold 
quantities  of  copper,  the  metal  par  excellence  for 
transmission  of  energy,  in  the  second;  such  were 
the  tropical  policies  of  Germany  in  the  first  years 
of  the  twentieth  century. 

It  is  for  the  realization  of  these  world  policies 
that  we  saw  the  Boche  intrigues  in  Venezuela  and 
in  Colombia  in  1902-03.  It  is  for  the  realization 
of  these  policies  that  we  saw  later  the  absorption  of 
a  part  of  the  French  Congo  by  Germany — thanks 
to  the  Moroccan  blackmail  begun  by  the  same 
bandit  nation  in  1905. 

This  impudent  Moroccan  piece  of  roguery  was 
undoubtedly  started  in  order  to  obtain  cause  for 
the  German  aggression  against  France  which  was 
due  about  that  time. 

It  was  certainly  the  firm  attitude  of  President 
Roosevelt  which  made  the  Boche  bully  step  back 
in  1905,  as  it  had  made  him  step  back  in  1902  after 
raising  the  Venezuela  question,  as  we  shall  see  in 
Chapter  XI. 

The  acquisition  of  a  part  of  the  French  Congo 
was  the  only  result  obtained  by  Germany  for  the 
promotion  of  her  tropical  policies.  It  consoled  her 
for  her  failure,  both  to  control  the  Panama  Canal 


126      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

and  to  declare  war  on  France  at  the  most  propitious 
moment  of  1905. 

Without  enlarging  too  much  upon  this  side-light 
it  is  not  unnecessary  to  have  a  knowledge  of  the 
three  great  German  designs  in  1901-05: 

Aggression  against  France. 

Acquisition  of  the  tropical  highland  of  America 
with  the  Panama  Canal  as  adjunct. 

Acquisition  of  the  tropical  highlands  of  Africa 
with  the  great  copper  mines  of  Katanga  as 
adjuncts. 

All  these  three  plans  were  foiled  thanks  to 
President  Roosevelt  and  to  the  Revolution  of 
Panama,  except  for  a  trifling  German  success  in 
the  third  of  these  plans. 

THE   OBSTRUCTION   OF   CONCHA 

As  I  have  said  already,  on  the  26th  of  February, 
1902,  Seiior  Jose  Vicente  Concha,  former  Minister 
of  War,  at  Bogota,  arrived  in  New  York  to  replace 
Senor  Martinez  Silva. 

On  the  preceding  day  Mr.  Martinez  Silva  had 
expressed  to  me  how  concerned  he  was  about 
Mr.  Concha's  influence  on  the  fate  of  the  Panama 
Canal.  He  had  several  days  earlier  requested  me 
to  write  to  him  a  letter  with  the  view  of  sending 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      127 

it  to  Bogota  in  order  to  influence  President  Marro- 
quin. 

As  we  were  examining  the  dangers  to  which  the 
situation  was  exposed,  through  the  unfriendliness 
of  Concha  to  the  adoption  of  the  Panama  route 
by  the  United  States,  he  said:  "If  your  letter  had 
reached  President  Marroquin!" 

"Well,"  I  replied,  "it  matters  little;  I  am  going 
to  cable  him  if  you  think  that  it  may  relieve  the 
situation." 

He  pressed  my  hand,  quite  moved,  saying: 
"But  that  will  cost  you  an  enormous  sum!" 

The  same  day  I  wired  to  President  Marroquin  a 
long  despatch  in  which  I  developed  seven  argu- 
ments demonstrating  where  the  duty  and  the 
interest  of  Colombia  lay.  I  strongly  urged  him 
to  resist  the  suggestions  of  a  foolish  greed  in  de- 
manding extortionate  financial  conditions  to  the 
United  States  for  the  grant  of  the  concession. 

Martinez  Silva  and  I  both  supposed  then  that 
his  recall  and  the  arrival  of  an  obstructionist  like 
Concha  meant  the  preponderance  of  a  policy  of 
extortionate  financial  conditions. 

In  fact,  the  evil  was  more  deeply  rooted.  It  was 
not  the  greed  of  Colombia  which  was  at  stake,  it 
was  the  plans  of  conquest  of  Germany. 


128      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

The  wild  excitation  of  an  over-sensitive  patriot- 
ism in  Colombia  was  obviously  the  policy  which,, 
was  to  be  adopted  by  the  enemies  of  the  American- 
ization of  the  Panama  Canal.  It  was  the  German 
policy,  par  excellence.  It  was  this  hypocritical  pol- 
icy which  consists  in  winning  in  a  foreign  country 
the  support  of  a  political  party,  not  only  by  adopting 
its  tendencies  but  also  fanning  constantly  to  white 
heat  the  red  cinders  of  its  aspirations.  The  Boche 
succeeds  thus  in  generating  a  catastrophic  fire 
which  practically  destroys  the  nation  in  which  he 
operates,  but  which  develops  there  the  conditions 
satisfactory  for  German  political  interests. 

The  best  agents  of  German  propaganda  in  most 
cases  happen  to  be  completely  ignorant  of  the 
real  part  they  are  made  to  play.  They  are,  with 
a  very  few  exceptions,  extremely  patriotic  and 
would  rather  kill  themselves  than  knowingly  serve 
a  foreign  interest  antagonistic  to  that  of  their  own 
country.  But  they  serve  it  just  the  same  by  the 
absurd  inflation  of  their  otherwise  justified  opinions. 
During  the  Great  War  we  have  seen  this  system 
working  with  striking  consequences  in  Russia. 

The  astute  fanning,  by  Boche  emissaries,  of  the 
socialist  cinders  existing  in  Russia  has  developed 
this  horrible  and  maddened  bolshevism  which  has 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      129 

destroyed  Russia  for  the  time  being.  It  is  the 
same  Boche  process  by  which,  in  France,  the  red 
cinders  of  discontent  were  fanned  when  the  Pana- 
ma Canal  Company  fell  into  financial  difficulties. 
The  subtle  Boche  calumnies  artificially  fabricated 
out  of  nothing  a  monumental  scandal  which  al- 
most entirely  disrupted  France,  and  would  have 
made  her  a  prey  to  the  German  aggressor  as  she 
was  in  1870  thanks  to  the  Boche-made  Mexican 
Empire. 

It  was  the  same  Boche  process  which  fanned  to 
a  flame  the  red  cinders  of  anti-semitic  tendencies 
thanks  to  which  was  launched  and  armed  the 
piratic  boat  of  the  Dreyfus  affair.  It  created  a 
moral  civil  war  which  coming  on  top  of  the  wreck 
of  the  Panama  Canal  Company  was  intended  to 
weaken  France  sufficiently  to  make  her  the  easy 
victim  of  Germany's  assault.  It  is  the  same  Boche 
process  by  which  the  red  cinders  of  French  ex- 
pansion in  the  New  World  had  been  fanned  at  the 
Court  of  the  Tuileries  in  1861-63.  It  is  the  same 
Boche  process  by  which  had  been  fanned  in  the 
United  States  the  red  cinders  of  legitimate  resent- 
ment against  France  for  violating  the  Monroe 
Doctrine. 

The  stupid  policy  followed  by  the  chimerical- 


130      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

minded  emperor,  Napoleon  III,  at  the  suggestion 
of  Bismarck's  camouflaged  agents,  led  to  the  Mexi- 
can Expedition,  and  was,  as  I  have  said  already, 
the  trap  laid  by  the  Prussians  in  view  of  preparing 
their  war  of  1870-71. 

It  was  certainly  the  same  Boche  process  by 
which  the  red  cinders  of  anti -protest  ant  ism  were 
fanned  at  the  end  of  the  glorious  reign  of  Louis 
XIV.  It  had  for  dire  consequence  the  revocation 
of  the  Edict  of  Nantes  and  the  consequent  ex- 
pulsion from  France  of  her  most  progressive  and 
most  intellectual  citizens. 

Recently  the  descendants  of  French  Huguenots 
have  appealed  to  the  pity  of  France  in  favour  of 
the  Hohenzollern  who  committed  the  crime  of 
crimes,  of  William  II.  They  based  their  plea  on 
the  favours  the  French  Huguenots  always  re- 
ceived from  the  Hohenzollerns. 

These  Boche-transformed  Frenchmen  ought  to 
have  understood  that  the  expulsion  of  the  Hugue- 
nots from  France  was  the  most  typical  example  of 
the  influence  of  Boche  political  venom  on  the  French 
political  system.  They  ought  to  have  seen  that 
these  Hohenzollern  favours  were  nothing  but  the 
other  end  of  the  treacherous  Boche  diplomacy.  Far 
from  asking  mercy  for  William  II  they  ought  to 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      131 

have  exposed  the  German  hypocrites  fanning  the 
red  cinders  of  religious  passions  in  France,  in  order 
to  recruit  her  best  citizens,  her  captains  of  indus- 
try, and  later  on  heaping  favours  upon  them  to  keep 
them  solidly  absorbed. 

When  we  shall  have  seen  clearly  through  our 
own  history  the  constant  action  of  the  Boche  in 
our  politics,  we  shall  begin  perhaps  to  be  aware  of 
their  poisonous  influence. 

My  purpose  now  is  to  show  their  traces  through 
the  history  of  the  Panama  Canal.  I  wish  to  show 
that  to  stop  its  misdeeds  it  suffices  to  attack  it,  to 
fight  it,  to  expose  it.  I  have  attacked  for  almost 
thirty  years  that  remarkable  Boche  conspiracy  in 
France,  in  Colombia,  and  in  the  United  States. 
I  followed  it  and  fought  it  everywhere  with  Truth 
as  my  only  weapon.  I  am  now  exposing  it  in 
the  hope  that  a  systematic  organization  will  be 
established  in  America,  England,  France,  and  Rus- 
sia to  countercheck  the  German  operations  of 
similar  nature  in  the  future. 

CONCHA   AND     THE    HIGH-PRESSURE     PATRIOTS     OF 
COLOMBIA 

When  Mr.  Concha  arrived  in  New  York,  the 
new  Colombian  minister  was  the  representative  of 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

the  policy  which  Boche  influence  was  creating  in 
Bogota. 

It  is  far  from  my  thought  to  accuse  Mr.  Concha 
of  being  in  any  way  conscious  of  the  part  Germany 
had  of  the  policy  he  was  sustaining.  I  repeat  that 
the  character  of  this  insidious  method  to  promote 
Boche  interests  is  precisely  to  fan  to  white  heat 
legitimate  and  generally  patriotic  passions. 

The  most  sincere  and  best  French  patriots  have 
unknowingly  served  the  Boche  interests  in  mental 
insurrections  "made  in  Germany"  which  are 
called  "the  Panama  and  the  Dreyfus  affairs." 

In  Colombia,  when  the  Boche  intrigues  were 
centred  in  Bogota  in  order  to  obtain  control  of 
the  inter-oceanic  passage,  almost  all  the  men  who 
were  blinded  by  a  foolish  patriotism  and  opposed 
the  United  States,  served  unknowingly  also  the 
Boche  propaganda. 

Concha  was  one  of  these  men.  He  was  repre- 
senting the  party  of  the  extremists,  the  bolshe- 
vists  of  the  right  wing,  always  ready  to  sacrifice 
everything — their  country  included — to  the 
spasmodic  and  exasperated  love  of  the  same 
country. 

This  party,  fooled  and  excited  by  German  in- 
fluences, had  obtained  from  the  honest  but  weak 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      133 

man  placed  at  the  head  of  the  Republic,  President 
Marroquin,  the  recall  of  Martinez  Silva. 

The  days  following  the  arrival  of  Seiior  Concha 
in  Washington  witnessed  violent  discussions.  On 
March  26th,  I  sent  a  telegram  to  the  principal 
paper  of  the  Isthmus,  the  Star  and  Herald,  in 
which  I  made  clear  that  Colombian  diplomacy  was 
practically  putting  to  death  the  Isthmian  popula- 
tion. This  telegram  was  the  reason  of  an  exchange 
of  correspondence  between  Seiior  Concha  and  my- 
self in  which  I  was  able  to  make  him  realize  the 
enormous  responsibility  he  was  assuming. 

Under  the  influence  of  this  pressure,  and  per- 
haps also  under  instructions  from  President 
Marroquin,  Concha  relaxed  on  the  27th  of  March 
from  his  obstruction  and  accepted  decent  condi- 
tions to  form  the  base  for  the  future  treaty  con- 
cerning the  Panama  Canal. 

This  temporary  victory  of  common  sense  over 
political  hysteria,  carefully  maintained  by  the 
Boche  in  adequate  exasperation,  allowed  the 
Senate  to  vote  in  favour  of  the  Panama  route  on 
June  19th.  The  House  followed,  as  we  know,  ten 
days  later. 

Then  began  the  fight  for  the  final  treaty.  Senor 
Concha  developed  again  in  the  autumn  of  1902 


134      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

the  most  energetic  qualities  of  obstructionist.  At 
a  given  moment  all  negotiations  were  suspended. 

I  decided  to  appeal  by  cablegram  to  President 
Marroquin. 

This  important  message  was  dated  November 
23, 1902.  In  it  I  did  not  hesitate  to  make  allusion 
to  a  possible  secession  of  the  Isthmus  as  a  conse- 
quence of  the  policy  adopted  at  Bogota.  I  pre- 
dicted then  what  was  to  take  place  in  the  same 
month  of  the  following  year.  Of  course  the  pre- 
diction had  to  be  carefully  enveloped  under  rhetor- 
ical veils. 

I  warned  him  against  "the  development  of  IN^ 
TERNATIONAL  EVENTS  of  the  gravest  order  from  which 
might  result  that  the  CANAL  BE  MADE  AT  PANAMA 
AGAINST  COLOMBIA  instead  of  being  made  with  her, 
amicably." 

THE   HAY-HERRAN   TREATY 

This  warning  apparently  strengthened  the  hands 
of  those  who  were  in  Bogota  defending  the  real 
interests  of  Colombia  against  the  clique  supported 
by  Boche  intrigues.  This  clique,  the  party  of  the 
White  Bolsheviki  of  Colombia,  was  also,  probably 
at  that  moment,  invited  by  Germany  to  relax 
its  opposition  and  to  let  the  other  party  win  for  a 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      135 

short  space  of  time.  At  that  moment  the  Boche 
was  preparing  the  final  move  and  the  disembarka- 
tion of  troops  on  Venezuelan  soil.  It  was  neces- 
sary to  placate  the  United  States  and  to  make  her 
believe  in  a  success  at  Bogota  and  in  the  indepen- 
dence between  Germany's  action  in  Venezuela  and 
the  Colombian  attitude  regarding  Panama. 

Concha's  successor,  Herran,  had  been  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  Legation  of  Colombia  in  Washington  for 
many  years.  He  was  a  modest,  prudent  official, 
incapable  of  any  action  without  an  explicit  order 
from  his  government. 

After  his  taking  charge  of  the  office  he  soon 
agreed  with  Mr.  Hay  as  to  the  conditions  of  parti- 
tion of  sovereignty  in  the  Canal  Zone.  But  again 
the  question  of  money  compensation  brought  out 
new  difficulties  and  the  negotiations  again  came  to 
a  standstill. 

I  decided  once  more  to  appraise  President  Marro- 
quin  the  question  and  I  cabled  to  him  on  the 
19th  of  December,  1902.  I  formally  advised  him 
to  propose  to  settle  the  controversy  by  the  ac- 
ceptance of  $10,000,000  in  cash  and  of  an  annuity 
of  $250,000  for  the  grant  of  the  Panama  Canal 
concession  to  the  United  States. 

On  the  22nd  of  January,  1903,  the  treaty  be- 


136      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

tween  the  United  States  and  Colombia  was  signed 
by  Mr.  John  Hay,  Secretary  of  State  of  the 
United  States  and  Senor  Herran,  Charge  d'Affaires 
of  Colombia. 

The  financial  stipulation  which  had  during  the 
whole  year  caused  limitless  difficulties  had  been 
resolved  according  to  my  suggestion. 

To-day  it  is  possible  to  see  clearly;  the  basic 
cause  of  that  signature.  This  cause  is  the  collapse 
of  Germany  when  faced  by  the  energetic  attitude 
of  Roosevelt  after  her  final  ultimatum  was  brought 
on  the  9th  of  December,  1902,  to  Caracas;  after  she 
had,  in  fact,  declared  war  on  Venezuela  in  order  to 
seize  a  slice  of  that  country's  coast  and  there  estab- 
lish a  military  base  controlling  the  Panama  Canal. 

On  the  9th  of  January,  1903,  it  became  known 
in  New  York  that  Von  Holleben,  the  German 
Ambassador  in  Washington,  had  been  dismissed  by 
the  Kaiser  from  the  diplomatic  service. 

It  was  the  final  discomfiture  of  Germany's  ag- 
gression on  Venezuela.  This  surrender  of  the 
Boche  bully  forced  him  naturally  to  slacken  en- 
tirely the  reins  in  Colombia  and  from  that  situation 
resulted  the  signature  of  the  Hay-Herran  Treaty. 
We  shall  see  later  the  account  by  Mr.  Roosevelt 
himself  of  these  memorable  events.  It  corroborates 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      137 

minutely  these  views  of  the  double-faced  policy  of 
Germany,  both  in  Venezuela  and  Colombia. 

Let  us  now  prove  the  identity  between  the 
Boche  policy  in  Venezuela  and  the  Colombian 
policy  in  the  United  States,  by  the  synchronism  of 
successive  events. 

Both  are  the  two  faces  of  the  same  body. 

THE  TWO  SIDES  OF  A  BOCHE  INTRIGUE  TO  CONQUER 

THE  PANAMA  CANAL  BY  HOOK  IN  VENEZUELA 

AND  BY  CROOK  IN  COLOMBIA 

First  Phase 

Furthering  by  the  Boche  of  a  cause  of  aggression 
against  Venezuela,  while  the  attitude  of  Colombia 
is  to  obstruct  the  conception  of  an  American-made 
Panama  Canal. 


VENEZUELA 

January  3,  1902. — A 
telegram  from  Berlin 
published  by  the  Paris 
Matin  of  the  morrow 
states  that  an  ultima- 
tum was  sent  to  Vene- 
zuela by  Germany  some 
days  before. —  It  is  the 
beginning  of  the  policy 
of  violence  toward  Vene- 
zuela to  generate  a 


COLOMBIA 

February  26,  1902  — 
Senor  Concha  lands  in 
New  York  as  minister  of 
Colombia  to  replace 
Martinez  Silva  who 
had  acted  in  good  faith 
for  furthering  an  under- 
standing between  the 
United  States,  Colombia, 
and  the  Panama  Com- 
pany. 


138      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 


VENEZUELA — Continued 

quarrel  from  which  shall 
result  a  seizure  of  ter- 
ritory. The  ultimatum 
does  not  fix  a  time  limit. 
It  is  a  feeler. 

January  10,  1902. — 
President  Castro  of  Vene- 
zuela publishes  a  tele- 
gram said  to  have  been 
sent  by  Secretary  of  the 
U.  S.  Navy  Long  of 
December  30,  1901,  giv- 
ing formal  and  precise 
instructions  to  the  vice 
admiral  commanding  the 
Atlantic  Fleet  to  oppose 
even  by  force  any  at- 
tempt of  the  Imperial 
German  fleet  cruising 
along  the  Venezuelan 
coast  to  seize  any  part 
of  the  territory  of  that 
republic. 

This  telegram,  if  gen- 
uine, demonstrates  that 
from  the  start,  the  U.  S. 
Government  was  wide 
awake  on  the  political 
significance  of  the  Ger- 
man move  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  the  Carib- 
bean Sea  and  that  Mr. 
Roosevelt  had  already 
given  his  instructions  to 
that  effect. 


COLOMBIA— Continued 

Concha  begins  a  policy 
of  obstruction  to  a  Canal 
understanding  between 
America  and  Colombia. 
That  policy  has  in  view 
the  confiscation  of  the 
property  of  the  Panama 
Company  by  Colombia 
and  its  sale  to  the  Ger- 
man Government  dis- 
guised as  a  syndicate. 

His  arrival  is  undoubt- 
edly the  Colombian  side 
of  the  policy  of  aggression 
of  Germany,  the  ultima- 
tum sent  to  Caracas  being 
the  Venezuelan  side. 

The  arrival  of  such  an 
aggressive  man  as  Con- 
cha follows  too  quickly 
the  opening  of  a  policy 
of  German  aggression 
in  Venezuela  not  to  be 
in  close  connection  with 
that  German  aggression. 

Martinez  Silva  dies 
on  his  way  back  to 
Bogota.  Everybody  be- 
lieves that  this  sad  event 
happened  too  "a  pro- 
pos"  not  to  have  been 
caused  by  Boche  parti- 
sans. 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      139 


Second  Phase 

Hectic  attitude  of  Germany  in  Venezuela  while 
it  is  smooth  and  oily  in  Colombia. 


VENEZUELA 

December  9,  1902.— A 
cablegram  from  Caracas 
announces  the  arrival  of 
a  special  messenger 
bringing  a  formal  ulti- 
matum of  48  hours  in  the 
joint  name  of  Germany 
and  Great  Britain. 

i  December  13,  1902.— 
Another  ultimatum  is 
brought  to  Caracas  from 
!  Italy  who  has  sent  a  man 
of  war  to  support  the 
ultimatum. — Let  us  re- 
member that  Italy  was 
at  that  time  the  ally  of 
Germany  and  following 
a  foreigp  policy  inspired 
by  Berlin. 

It  is  the  great  clear- 
ing of  the  German 
decks  for  action — against 
Venezuela,  apparently — 
against  the  U.  S.  in 
reality. 


COLOMBIA 

December  1,  1902.— 
Change  of  attitude  of 
Colombia  in  Washing- 
ton. Concha,  the  ob- 
structionist minister,  is 
replaced  by  a  subaltern 
individuality,  Herran, 
Secretary  of  the  Panama 
Legation  for  many  years. 
He  is  a  puppet,  chosen 
to  soften  provisorily 
the  Colombian-American 
friction  during  the  burn- 
ing period  which  is  going 
to  be  opened  on  account 
of  the  proposed  seizure 
by  Germany  of  a  part  of 
the  Venezuelan  coast. 
The  Germans  let  the 
rein  loose  on  the  Colom- 
bian side,  while  they  are 
going  to  pull  strongly 
the  other  one,  on  the 
Venezuelan  side. 

Of  course  the  relaxa- 
tion will  be  temporary 
and  the  pull  on  the  Co- 
lombian rein  will  begin 
again  when  the  Vene- 


140      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

COLOMBIA — Continued 

zuelan  acquisition  shall 
have  been  carried  out. 

The  double  part  to  be 
played  by  Herren  is 
shown  by  his  attitude. 
He  is  all  smoothness  in 
the  first  days  of  Decem- 
ber and  hardens  again 
after  the  blackmailing 
attitude  of  Germany  has 
been  assumed. 

December  19,  1902.— 
My  telegram  to  Presi- 
dent Marroquin  saying: 
"Situation  ameliorated 
by  removal  of  diplomatic 
representative  of  Colom- 
bia is  exposed  to  new 
and  grave  perils  on  the 
question  of  annual  rent- 
als." I  conclude  the 
telegram  by  suggesting 
the  financial  settlement. 

Third  Phase 

Collapse  of  the  German  intrigues  both  in 
Venezuela  and  Colombia. 

General  surrender  of  the  War  Lord  of  Germany 
before  Roosevelt's  verbal  ultimatum. 

VENEZUELA  COLOMBIA 

December  18,   1902-  January    22,    1903.— 

Cablegram  from  Wash-         Signature   of   the   Hay- 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      141 


VENEZUELA — Continued 

ington  announcing  that 
President  Castro  of  Ven- 
ezuela has  given  full 
power  to  Mr.  Bowen, 
Minister  of  the  United 
States  at  Caracas  to 
settle  all  difficulties  with 
Germany,  England,  and 
Italy. 

January  9, 1903.— The 
Sun  publishes  a  telegram 
from  Berlin,  dated  Jan- 
uary 8th,  saying  that 
notwithstanding  official 
statements  Dr.  Von 
Holleben  will  not  return 
to  Washington  except  to 
take  leave  when  he  is 
formally  recalled. 

This  is  the  submission 
of  Germany  in  the  Vene- 
zuelan theatre  of  Boche 
intrigue. 


COLOMBIA — Continued 

Herran  Treaty  which  al- 
lows the  construction  of 
the  Panama  Canal  by 
America  and  prohibits 
Colombia  to  cede  or 
lease  to  any  foreign  gov- 
ernment any  of  its  islands 
or  harbours  near  the 
Bay  of  Panama,  or  on 
the  Atlantic  coast  of 
Colombia  between  the 
Atr?*  River  and  the 
wes.  ,a  boundary  of  the 
department  of  Panama. 
J«  iry  31,  1903.— 
The  Mew  York  Herald 
quot  a  a  senator  as  say- 
ing that  the  foreign  gov- 
ernment against  which 
this  interdiction  was  speci- 
fied is  Germany. 

This  is  the  submission 
of  Germany  in  the  Co- 
lombian theatre  of  Boche 
intrigue. 


PROOFS   AND    SUSPICIONS    OF   BOCHE    CONSPIRACIES 
AGAINST  THE  UNITED  STATES  WITH  THE  COM- 
PLICITY   OF    THE    RULING    ELEMENTS    OF 
COLOMBIA 

This  synoptic  representation  of  the  events  of 
1902-03  in  Venezuela  and  Colombia  shows  clearly 


142      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

the  rigid  link  between  the  two.  It  is  the  clearest 
and  most  vivid  demonstration  that  they  are  but 
two  faces  of  the  same  body.  The  Boche  is  beaten 
at  the  beginning  of  1903  but  he  will  soon  begin  a 
new  intrigue  in  Colombia  to  throw  out  the  United 
States  and  prevent  the  ratification  of  the  treaty 
he  has  been  obliged  to  allow  the  Colombian  Gov- 
ernment to  sign. 

However  well  concealed  was  the  system  of  trans- 
mission of  German  intrigues  it  was  suspected  all 
along.  Many  papers  made  allusion  to  it. 

The  New  York  Herald  (Paris  edition)  of  January 
16,  1903,  reproduced  a  telling  cartoon  from  Life 
alluding  to  the  Panama  situation.  It  shows  Uncl* 
Sam  clad  in  Robinson  Crusoe's  attire  and  looking 
at  footprints  on  the  soil  of  South  America  on  which 
he  is  walking. 

Below  the  cartoon  appears:  "MORE  THAN 
RUMOUR";  and  above  it:  "UNCLE  SAM  [Robinson 
Crusoe]  SEES  GERMANY'S  FOOTPRINT." 


CHAPTER  X 

Various  traces  of  boche  intrigue  in  Bogota  for  defeating 
in  1903  the  adoption  of  the  Panama  Canal  by  the 
U.  S.  after  she  had  resolved  to  do  so  and  signed  the 
Hay-Herran  Treaty. 

FROM  the  17th  of  March,  1903— date  of  the 

ratification  by  the  American  Senate  of  the  Hay- 
1  Herran  Treaty — to  the  3rd  of  November  following 
;^-date  of  the  Panama  Revolution — the  fate  of 

the  Panama  Canal  hung  hi  the  balance  at  Bogota. 

It  is  beyond  doubt  that  Marroquin,  who  was  a 

•  real  dictator,  was  earnestly  desirous  of  seeing  in 

;  force  the  treaty  which  he  had  ordered  Herran  to 

i  sign  in  spite  of  the  White  Bolsheviki  of  Bogota. 

But  these  fanatics — excited,  as  all  extremists  are, 

by  the  Boche  propaganda,  when  Germany  has  to 
|  hope  something  from  disorder  sown  in  foreign 

lands — soon  tried  to  take  their  revenge. 

The  track  of  the  Boche  hand,  which  was  so 

clearly  shown  in  the  preceding  period,  is  also  easy 

to  discover  in  this  one. 

143 


144      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

SUSPICION  OF  GERMAN  UNDERHAND  PRESSURE 

During  the  extremely  interesting  period  of  the 
discussion  before  the  Colombian  Congress  which 
we  shall  narrate  later  on,  the  American  minister 
in  Bogota,  Mr.  Beaupre,  mentions  in  a  letter  to 
Secretary  Hay  dated  July  21,  1903,  the  shadow  of 
Germany  on  Colombia.  He  writes: 

At  times  I  have  thought,  from  the  tone  of  the  conver- 
sation of  certain  opponents,  that  foreign  hostile  influ- 
ences were  at  work,  but  I  have  never  been  able  to  be 
certain  of  this.  If  there  be  opposition  from  this  source, 
it  is  of  too  secret  a  nature  to  be  discovered  and  cannot 
therefore  be  particularly  effective. 

Mr.  Beaupre's  last  remark,  that  the  "secret 
intrigues  cannot  be  particularly  effective"  is  indeed 
so  full  of  candour  as  to  disqualify  him  as  a  good 
judge  of  the  dangers  of  German  diplomacy. 

He  certainly  would  not  repeat  that  statement 
to-day  after  the  bitter  experience  the  world  has  had 
of  the  effectiveness  of  the  most  secret  German 
intrigues.  % 

The  conspiracy  to  unchain  the  criminal  war  of 
1914  was  indeed  very  secret.  Was  it  not  effective? 

Von  Luxburg's  recommendation  to  sink  neutral 
ships  without  leaving  traces  was  indeed  secret! 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      145 

>id  it  prevent  the  submarine  work  from  being 
effective? 

Further  down  in  the  same  letter  Mr.  Beaupre 
gives  another  proof  of  his  naivete  in  furnishing, 
as  a  proof  of  Germany's  disposition,  the  following 
account: 

I  have  certain  but  private  information  that  Doctor 
Uricoechea — a  member  of  the  Senate's  special  Com- 
mittee, heretofore  referred  to,  and  who  lived  a  great 
many  years  in  Germany — called  on  Baron  Grunau,  the 
German  Charge  d'Affaires,  to  enquire  what  would  be 
the  attitude  of  the  German  Government  in  case  of 
trouble  arising  out  of  the  matter,  and  whether  it  would 
be  willing  to  undertake  or  aid  the  construction  of  the 
Canal,  in  case  the  treaty  with  the  United  States  should 
not  be  ratified. 

Baron  Grunau  replied  that  he  had  no  instructions 
bearing  on  the  subject,  but  that  he  was  of  the  positive 
opinion  that,  considering  how  desirous  his  government 
was  at  the  present  moment  to  remain  on  friendly  terms 
with  the  United  States,  it  would  not  take  any  steps 
with  reference  to  the  construction  of  the  Canal  con- 
troversy growing  out  of  the  present  negotiation. 

Evidently  the  German  diplomats  could  not,  six 
months  after  the  abject  surrender  of  William  II 
in  the  Venezuela  incident,  bring  him  forward  in  a 
new  scrap  with  Roosevelt. 


146      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

Never  would  the  German  Government  have 
taken  any  step,  but  private  German  citizens  would 
have  certainly  done  it  under  a  proper  camouflage. 

The  art  of  financial  camouflage  was  not  in  its 
infancy.  But  Mr.  Beaupre  was  not  aware  of  the 
Boche  tricks.  (In  extenuation,  it  may  be  said 
that  very  few  people  were — at  that  time.) 

What  we  must  retain  of  his  letter  is  the  fact  that 
in  spite  of  his  obvious  candour  he  could  not  have 
helped  suspecting  the  Boche  hand  working  against 
the  United  States  in  Colombia  to  kill  the  Hay- 
Herran  Treaty. 

The  manifestation  of  the  reality  of  Boche  activ- 
ity will  be  found  in  the  motto  of  the  enemies  of 
the  Hay-Herran  Treaty. 

We  find  it  particularly  well  expressed  in  the 
Nuevo  Tiempo  of  Bogota,  October  16,  1903. 
Speaking  of  the  Hay-Herran  Treaty  it  said: 

This  treaty  is  a  violation  of  our  fundamental  institu- 
tions. I  desire,  as  do  many  of  my  compatriots,  that 
whatever  canal  may  be  built  across  the  Isthmus  be, 
for  eternity,  in  the  rigorous  acception  of  the  word,  A 
COLOMBIAN  CANAL.  If  it  cannot  be  a  COLOMBIAN 
CANAL,  then  it  cannot  be  built. 

The  above  quotation  is  a  formal  demonstration 
of  the  same  Boche  influence  on  the  white  extrem- 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      147 

ists  of  Colombia.  It  can  be  placed  at  the  side  of 
the  demonstration  resulting  from  the  synchronous 
moves  of  the  Germans  in  Caracas  and  of  the  Co- 
lombians in  Washington  during  the  year  1902  and 
January  of  1903. 

The  Colombians  may  have  erratic  political 
opinions,  but  they  can  claim  one  thing:  that  is,  not 
to  deserve  to  be  held  as  dull  and  stupid.  They 
would  be  entitled  so  to  be  regarded  if  they  had 
ever  believed  for  one  moment  that  Colombia  could 
have  a  Colombian  canal  made  at  Panama  by 
Colombian  engineers  and  with  Colombian  money ; 
that  is,  a  Colombian  canal  in  the  rigorous  acception 
of  the  word.  To  say  and  believe  such  a  thing, 
after  the  failure  of  the  French  Company  to  collect 
the  necessary  funds  from  the  public,  is  impossible 
to  a  rational  being.  Colombia,  herself  being  en- 
tirely unable  to  construct  even  a  railway  of  any 
importance,  could  not  dream  of  financing  the  giant 
enterprise  with  her  own  resources.  Only  the 
money  of  a  large  government  could  finance  the 
Panama  Canal  construction. 

No  other  government  in  the  world  but  that  of 
Germany  had  enough  interest  in  the  matter  to 
undertake  it  in  competition  with  the  United 
States.  If  another  had  had  the  interest,  none 


148      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

would  have  had  the  nerve  to  do  it.  It  may  be  I 
said,  therefore,  that  the  enigma  of  a  strictly  Co- 1 
lombian  canal  has  only  one  solution. 

By  the  expression  strictly  Colombian  canal  was! 
meant :  a  canal  made  by  a  Colombian  company,  I 
under  Colombian  laws,  with  ostensibly  private! 
German  subscribers  but  in  reality  with  the  money  I 
of  the  German  Government  itself.  Of  course  not  I 
only  the  money  but  the  engineers,  the  machinery,  I 
and  the  directorate  would  have  been  German.  It  I 
would  have  been  a  replica  of  the  Bagdad  Railway.  I 
The  canal  would  have  been  a  strictly  Colombian! 
canal  as  to  the  exterior  aspect.  It  would  have! 
been  a  strictly  German  canal  as  to  the  internal! 
brains,  nerves,  sinews,  and  muscles. 

This  combination  is  the  one  and  only  rational! 
explanation  of  the  belief  shared  by  many,  if  not! 
all  Colombians,  that,  by  rejecting  the  Hay-Herran  I 
Treaty,  the  life  of  the  Canal  was  ensured  with! 
many  additional  advantages  for  Colombia.  Of! 
course,  as  a  preliminary  step,  Colombia  was  to  steal  | 
the  Panama  Canal  concession  from  the  French  | 
Company  and  sell  the  stolen  goods  to  Germany.  , 

This  was  the  programme  implicitly  contained  jf 
in  the  declaration  quoted  hereabove  from  thej 
Nuevo  Tiempo  of  October  16,  1903. 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      149 

When  Colombia  decided  to  throw  off  the  Ameri- 
can cooperation,  the  work  of  the  Boche  influences 
and  programmes  to  that  effect  could  be  clearly 
detected.  They  were  obvious  then  for  a  limited 
number  of  persons  only  but  they  can  be  now  fully 
demonstrated.  However  carefully  concealed  from 
the  public  eyes,  at  that  time  its  radiations  could 
be  detected  by  special  observers. 

QUOTATIONS   FROM   AMERICAN   PAPERS   IN   1903 

I  am  going  to  give  quotations  from  the  papers 
of  the  period  considered,  which  entirely  confirm 
the  rational  inductions  which  can  be  obtained 
from  the  facts  as  well  as  from  the  suspicions  of 
Mr.  Beaupre. 

The  New  York  Sun  of  October  23,  1903,  pub- 
lished the  following: 

COLOMBIA  TO  BUILD  CANAL? 

SEEKING  EUROPEAN  CAPITAL  TO  COMPLETE  THE  PANAMA 
WATERWAY 

WASHINGTON,  Oct.  22. — Dr.  Herran,  the  Colombian 
Charge  d'Affaires,  had  a  talk  with  Secretary  Hay  to-day. 

Mr.  Hay  learned  that  Seiior  N of  the  Colombian 

diplomatic  service,  who  arrived  here  this  week  sup- 
posedly with  new  proposals  from  his  government  for 


150      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

the  negotiations  of  a  Panama  Canal  treaty,  brought 
no  such  proposals. 

The  State  Department  had  heard,  however,  through 
sources  connected  with  the  Panama  Canal  Company, 

that  Sefior  N asserts  that  European  capitalists  are 

ready  to  advance  the  money  to  build  the  Panama  Canal 
and  that  the  Colombian  Government  is  indifferent  on 
that  account  to  make  another  treaty  with  the  United 
States.  .  .  . 

Who  were  the  European  capitalists  who  could 
then  complete  the  Panama  Canal?  The  answer  is 
simple:  No  private  capitalists  could,  but  a  govern- 
ment, camouflaged  under  the  garb  of  private  banks, 
might  take  such  a  risk.  For  political  purposes  a 
government  might  accept  the  financial  challenge 
against  Nature  as  to  the  cost  of  construction  and 
against  the  American-made  Nicaragua  Canal  as 
to  that  of  operation. 

Among  the  European  governments,  as  we  have 
seen  already,  only  one,  the  German  Government, 
could  contemplate  such  a  scheme. 

This  was  Mr.  Hay's  opinion  as  expressed  in  the 
World  of  the  same  day,  October  23,  1903,  about 
the  same  Sen  or  N 's  mission: 

.  .  .  .  It  is  known  that  Mr.  Hay  fears  that  Canal 
matters  may  develop  into  international  complication. 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      151 

It  is  believed  that  Colombia  will  try  to  secure 
$10,000,000  from  the  Panama  Canal  Company.  .  .  . 
If  the  Company  refuses  it  is  predicted  from  what  Seiior 

N has  said  that  Colombia  will  declare  void  the  law  ex- 

tending  the  franchise  from  190 Ji.  to  1910  and  confiscate  the 
property  with  the  idea  of  turning  it  over  to  a  German 
syndicate. 

There  we  have  the  whole  plan  condensed  in  a 
few  lines  by  the  World's  representative  at  Wash- 
ington. 

It  is  the  explicit  echo  of  the  Nuevo  Tiempo  of 
Bogota: 

A  Colombian  canal  in  the  full  sense  of  the  word. 

We  have  there  the  rightful  interpretation  which 
we  had  already  deducted  by  reasoning. 

It  is  the  final  outcome,  at  the  end  of  1903,  of 
the  German  intrigues  in  Colombia.  These  in- 
trigues had  begun  in  January,  1902,  when  Senor 
Concha  went  to  Washington  to  prevent  the 
Americanization  of  the  Panama  Canal  and  the 
consequent  rapprochement  of  America  and  France. 

But  it  is  not  only  on  the  rational  examination  of 
facts  and  on  the  appreciation  of  American  news- 
papers that  the  demonstration  of  these  intrigues 
is  resting. 


152      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

We  have  a  most  striking  testimony  expressed 
in  a  letter  published  by  a  newspaper  of  Lima  and 
reproduced  by  the  New  York  Tribune  of  October 
27,  1903. 

Here  is  the  Tribune's  article: 

FAILURE  OF  CANAL  BILL 

GERMAN   MINISTER   SAID    TO   HAVE   AIDED   IN   SECURING 
ITS  DEFEAT 

El  Comercio,  a  newspaper  of  Lima,  publishes  in  a  re- 
cent issue  a  letter  from  its  correspondent  in  Colon  in 
which  it  is  asserted  authoritatively  that  the  diplomatic 
representatives  of  Germany  and  Chili  at  Bogota  worked 
secretly  together  to  help  the  defeat  of  the  Panama 
Canal  Treaty.  Rumours  have  been  current  for  some 
time  that  a  strong  foreign  influence  was  being  used 
against  the  treaty.  The  article  in  El  Comercio  says  in 
part: 

The  Colombian  Senate  took  the  action  it  did  on  the  advice 
of  Senor ,  the  German  Minister  at  Bogota. 

Germany  sent  to  Nicaragua  a  commission  of  civil  engineers 
to  make  a  thorough  inspection  of  the  proposed  Nicaragua  Canal 
and  to  report  to  Berlin  on  its  feasibility.  The  commission 
reported  that  besides  the  tremendous  expense  that  would  be 
incurred  by  the  adoption  of  the  Nicaragua  route,  it  was 
physically  impracticable  for  the  United  States  and  against 
her  interests. 

This  finding  was  immediately  communicated  to  Senor 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      153 

who  took  care  to  make  the  Colombian  Government  acquainted 
with  its  purport. 

The  press  of  Colombia  continues  its  violent  agitation 
against  the  treaty. 

It  is  obvious  from  these  various  quotations  that 
however  well  concealed  were  the  wires  pulled  by 
the  Boche  in  Bogota,  it  was  impossible  to  cover 
them  entirely. 

The  great  principle  of  Von  Luxburg  to  com- 
mit political  crimes  without  leaving  traces  is  the 
hope  of  all  law  breakers,  but  it  is  not  always  ful- 
filled. 

It  is  not  only  at  the  end  of  this  long,  treacherous 
struggle  against  America's  civilizing  and  generous 
undertaking  that  the  hiss  of  the  Boche  snake 
could  be  heard  from  outside.  The  strong  smell 
revealed  the  trail  of  the  reptile  and  we  have  found 
it  everywhere. 

At  every  critical  phase  it  could  be  clearly  dis- 
tinguished in  the  period  of  1902,  as  shown  in  the 
preceding  chapters  and  in  the  period  of  1903  as 
has  been  shown  in  this  one. 


CHAPTER  XI 

President  Roosevelt's  testimony  relative  to  the  breakdown 
— thanks  to  a  verbal  ultimatum  to  Germany  at  the  end 
of  1902 — of  the  Boche-camouflaged  naval  and  diplo- 
matic operations  to  obtain  on  the  Venezuelan  shores 
a  military  base  commanding  the  Panama  Canal 

I  HAVE  now  demonstrated,  I  think  to  the  satis- 
faction of  the  most  sceptical  mind,  that  interde- 
pendence existed  between  the  attitude  of  Germany 
in  Caracas  (Venezuela)  and  the  attitude  of  Co- 
lombia in  Washington  (United  States)  during  the 
year  1902.  I  have  shown  how,  at  the  three  succes- 
sive critical  moments  of  the  German  blackmailing 
adventure  in  Caracas,  there  corresponded  three 
synchronous  and  highly  sympathetic  movements 
of  Colombia  in  Washington. 

It  remains  for  me  to  show  what  was  the  signi- 
ficance, for  the  American  Government,  of  that 
German  blackmailing  adventure  in  Caracas.  I 
have  to  show  that  this  Boche  move  was  indeed 
made  against  the  Panama  Canal,  while  Colom- 

154 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      155 

bian  sympathizers  were  working  in  Bogota;  I  have 
to  show  how  the  Boche  was  foiled  in  his  expecta- 
tions. 

The  most  powerful — one  might  say  the  only — 
witness  of  the  whole  affair  was  the  then  President 
of  the  United  States  himself,  Theodore  Roosevelt. 
I  am  going  to  quote  from  Mr.  Ralph  Page's 
"Dramatic  Moments  in  American  Diplomacy" 
his  momentous  declarations  about  the  matter. 

After  reproducing  Mr.  Roosevelt's  testimony 
I  shall  give  my  own  and  narrate  how,  almost  a 
year  later,  I  was  able  to  foil  the  German  intrigue 
in  Colombia  by  the  creation  of  the  Republic  of 
Panama. 

MR.  ROOSEVELT'S  TESTIMONY* 

I  also  became  convinced  that  Germany  intended  to 
seize  some  Venezuelan  harbour  and  turn  it  into  a  strongly 
fortified  place  of  arms,  on  the  model  of  Kiau-Chau,  with 
a  view  to  exercising  some  degree  of  control  over  the  future 
Isthmian  canal  and  over  South  American  affairs 
generally. 

For  some  time  the  usual  methods  of  diplomatic  in- 
tercourse were  tried.  Germany  declined  to  agree  to 
arbitrate  the  question  at  issue  between  her  and  Vene- 
zuela, and  declined  to  say  that  she  would  not  take  posses- 


*Reproduced  from  "Dramatic  Moments  in  American  Diplomacy,"  by  Ralph  Page. 
Doubleday,  Page  &  Co.,  New  York,  Publishers. 


156      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

sion  of  Venezuelan  territory,  merely  saying  that  such 
possession  would  be  "temporary";  which  might  mean 
anything.  I  finally  decided  that  no  useful  purpose 
would  be  served  by  further  delay,  and  I  took  action 
accordingly.  I  assembled  our  battle  fleet  (there  were 
more  than  fifty  ships  including  every  battleship  and 
destroyer  we  had)  under  Admiral  Dewey,  near  Porto 
Rico,  for  "manoeuvres,"  with  instructions  that  the 
fleet  should  be  kept  in  hand  and  in  fighting  trim,  and 
should  be  ready  to  sail  at  an  hour's  notice.  The  fact 
that  the  fleet  was  in  West  Indian  waters  was  of  course 
generally  known,  but  I  believe  that  the  Secretary  of 
the  Navy,  and  Admiral  Dewey,  and  perhaps  his  chief 
of  staff  and  the  Secretary  of  State,  John  Hay,  were  the 
only  persons  who  knew  about  the  order  for  the  fleet 
to  be  ready  to  sail  at  an  hour's  notice.  I  told  John 
Hay  that  I  would  now  see  the  German  Ambassador, 
Herr  Von  Holleben,  myself  and  that  I  intended  to  bring 
matters  to  an  early  conclusion.  Our  navy  was  in 
very  efficient  condition,  being  superior  to  the  German 
navy. 

I  saw  the  Ambassador,  and  explained  that,  in 
view  of  the  presence  of  the  German  squadron  on  the 
Venezuelan  coast,  I  could  not  permit  longer  delay  in 
answering  my  request  for  an  arbitration,  and  that 
I  could  not  acquiesce  in  any  seizure  of  Venezuelan 
territory. 

The  Ambassador  responded  that  his  government 
could  not  agree  to  arbitrate,  and  that  there  was  no 
intention  to  take  permanent  possession  of  Venezuelan 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      157 

territory.  I  answered  that  Kiau-Chau,  was  not  a 
"permanent"  possession  of  Germany — that  I  under- 
stood that  it  was  merely  held  by  a  ninety-nine-years 
lease;  and  that  I  did  not  intend  to  have  another  Kiau- 
Chau  held  by  similar  tenure  on  the  approach  to  the 
Isthmian  canal.  The  ambassador  repeated  that  his 
government  would  not  agree  to  arbitrate.  I  then 
asked  him  to  inform  his  government  that  if  no  noti- 
fication for  arbitration  came  within  a  certain  specified 
number  of  days  I  should  be  obliged  to  order  Dewey 
to  take  his  fleet  to  Venezuelan  waters  and  see  that 
the  German  forces  did  not  take  possession  of  any 
territory. 

He  expressed  very  grave  concern  and  asked  me  if  I 
realized  the  serious  consequences  that  would  follow 
such  action,  consequences  so  serious  to  both  countries 
that  he  dreaded  to  give  them  a  name.  I  answered  that 
I  had  thoroughly  counted  the  cost  before  I  decided  on 
the  step,  and  asked  him  to  look  at  the  map,  as  a  glance 
would  show  him  that  there  was  no  spot  in  the  world 
where  Germany,  in  the  event  of  a  conflict  with  the 
United  States,  would  be  at  a  greater  disadvantage  than 
in  the  Caribbean  Sea. 

A  few  days  later  the  Ambassador  came  to  see  me, 
talked  pleasantly  on  several  subjects,  and  rose  to  go. 
I  asked  him  if  he  had  any  answer  to  make  from  his 
government  to  my  request,  and,  when  he  said  No,  I 
informed  him  that  in  such  event  it  was  useless  to  wait 
as  long  as  I  intended,  and  that  Dewey  would  be  ordered 
to  sail  twenty-four  hours  in  advance  of  the  time  I  had 


158      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

set.    He  expressed  deep  apprehension  and  said  that  his 
government  would  not  arbitrate. 

However,  less  than  twenty-four  hours  before  the  time 
I  had  appointed  for  cabling  the  order  to  Dewey,  the 
Ambassador  notified  me  that  His  Imperial  Majesty,  the 
German  Emperor,  had  directed  him  to  request  me  to 
undertake  the  arbitration  myself.  I  felt  and  publicly 
expressed  great  gratification  at  this  outcome  and  great 
appreciation  of  the  course  the  German  Government 
had  finally  agreed  to  take.  Later,  I  received  the  con- 
sent of  the  German  Government  to  have  the  arbi- 
tration undertaken  by  the  Hague  Tribunal  and  not 
by  me. 

The  author  of  "Dramatic  Moments  in  American 
Diplomacy"  adds  to  this  testimony  of  Roosevelt 
that  Von  Holleben  was  recalled  in  disgrace  by 
the  Kaiser  and  dismissed  from  the  diplomatic 
service. 

As  we  have  seen,  Mr.  Roosevelt's  intervention 
had  settled  the  whole  matter  within  less  than  a 
month.  It  had  been  done  between  the  opening  of 
formal  hostilities,  December  9,  1902,  and  the  ar- 
rival of  the  news  of  the  disgrace  of  Von  Holleben, 
January  9,  1903. 

Precise,  vigorous,  decisive  action  had  foiled 
the  German  conspiracy  to  establish  a  military 
base  in  Venezuela  in  order  to  command  the  en- 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      159 

trance  to  the  Panama  Canal.  It  had  also,  for  a 
time  at  least,  broken  down  the  Boche-made  op- 
position of  Colombia  to  a  treaty  with  the  United 
States.  It  was  as  a  consequence  of  that  ultimatum 
that  the  Hay-Herran  Treaty  was  signed. 


CHAPTER  XII 

The  author's  testimony  concerning  the  breakdown — thanks 
to  the  Panama  Revolution,  in  November,  1903 — 
of  the  concealed  Boche  diplomatic  operations  to  obtain 
from  Colombia:  (1)  the  rejection  of  any  treaty  with 
the  United  States;  (2)  the  confiscation  in  the  autumn 
of  1904  of  the  French  Panama  Canal  Company's 
properties  and  concessions;  (3)  the  transfer  of  these 
properties  and  concessions  to  the  German  Government 
masquerading  under  the  disguise  of  a  "  strictly 
Colombian  corporation" 

WE  SHALL  see  now  how  I  could  foil  the  German 
conspiracy,  in  Colombia,  to  acquire  possession  of 
the  Panama  Canal  itself. 

The  history  of  the  Panama, UeYolution  which 
saved  the  Panama  Canal  from  the  grip  of  Germany , 
effected  by  the  willing  hand  of  Colombia,  was  al- 
ready written  in  1913  but  without  the  clear  light 
which  the  Great  War  has  thrown  on  Boche  diplo- 
matic methods.* 

*See  "Panama:  the  Creation— the  Destruction— the  Resurrection."  French  edi- 
tion, Plon  Nourrit,  Paris;  English  edition,  Constable  &  Co.,  Ltd.,  London;  Ameri- 
can edition,  Robert  M.  McBride  and  Co.,  New  York. 

160 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      161 

In  "Panama;  the  Creation — the  Destruction— 
the  Resurrection"  I  abstained  from  indicting  Ger- 
many as  the  cause  of  the  destruction,  and  from 
showing  what  heavy  defeat  she  had  sustained  by 
the  resurrection.  My  principle  in  writing  the 
complete  history  of  the  great  drama  of  Panama 
was  to  advance  nothing  which  I  could  not  prove 
by  documents. 

How  could  I  have  then  proved  the  existence  of 
criminal  work  of  the  Boche  hand  in  all  the  internal 
and  external  troubles  of  any  nation,  whenever  such 
troubles  could  serve  the  Boche  cause?  I  suspected 
it;  but  without  a  knowledge  of  the  facts  which  the 
war  has  exposed  to  the  light  of  the  day,  and  which 
transformed  these  suspicions  into  certainties. 
The  servants  of  Boche  intrigue  would  have  heaped 
upon  me  their  usual  calumnies,  but  this  time  I 
should  have  lacked  all  possibility  of  demonstrating 
their  mendacity  and  pointing  toward  the  Wil- 
helmstrasse  of  Berlin  as  their  origin. 

To-day  the  greatest  centre  of  crime  the  world 
has  ever  known — the  German  Foreign  Office — is 
temporarily  out  of  its  usual  business.  It  is  due  to 
the  activity  of  the  American  Secret  Service  that 
many  of  its  dastardly  plots  have  been  exposed. 
Its  treacherous  work  in  the  United  States,  in 


162      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

Mexico,  in  Argentina,  in  Japan  is  now  known. 
It  is  possible  also  henceforth  to  prove  other 
crimes  by  reconstitution  and  juxtaposition  of 
facts. 

This  is  what  I  am  doing  in  exposing  what  was 
one  of  the  blackest  conspiracies  to  prepare  the 
German  assault  against  the  liberty  of  the  world. 
I  therefore  can  print  again  the  history  of  the 
Panama  Revolution  by  which  I  was  fortunate 
enough  to  foil  this  criminal  conspiracy. 

The  reader,  now  better  informed,  will  be  able  to 
understand  its  meaning,  its  importance,  its  vast 
consequences. 

THE  GOVERNMENT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  HAD  NO 
HAND   IN  THE   PANAMA  REVOLUTION 

The  reader  will  now  also  completely  understand 
that  the  President  of  the  United  States  was  abso- 
lutely free  from  secret  connivance  with  the  revolu- 
tionists. He  will  understand,  now,  Mr.  Roose- 
velt's meaning  when  he  said:  "I  took  Panama." 

The  dissemination  of  the  truth  about  the  Pana- 
ma Revolution  will  also  help  to  eliminate  the  pres- 
sure exercised  on  the  conscience  of  some  people  by 
the  idea  that  Colombia  was  wronged.  They  will 
see  that  since  the  Revolutionary  War  of  the  Eng- 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      163 

lish  colonies  of  America,  there  never  was  a  clearer 
case  of  the  right  of  a  nation  to  dispose  of  itself.  Co- 
lombia has,  not  and  never  had,  the  slightest  title  to 
receive  an  indemnity  for  the  separation  of  Panama. 

My  views  are  fully  expressed  in  the  letter  which 
I  wrote  to  the  Secretary  of  State  about  the  very 
same  subject  on  the  morning  of  November  18, 
1903 — the  day  I  signed  the  Hay-Bunau-Varilla 
Treaty,  which  made  the  Panama  Canal  a  fact. 

I  reproduce  this  letter  herewith: 

Wednesday  morning, 

November  18,  1903. 
DEAR  MR.  SECRETARY, 

Will  you  allow  me  to  condense  the  somewhat  loosely 
expressed  ideas  I  submitted  to  you  yesterday  on  the 
question  of  reserving  for  Colombia,  against  a  quit  claim, 
a  part  of  the  $10,000,000  which  is  to  be  paid  to  the 
Republic  of  Panama  by  the  United  States? 

This,  in  my  opinion,  would  create  two  independent 
impressions. 

First. — Impression  on  the  World  in  general. 

Any  man  who  pays  something  that  he  does  not  owe 
is  immediately  thought  to  be  paying  under  the  pressure 
of  blackmail. 

Any  man  who  pays  under  the  pressure  of  blackmail 
is  immediately  thought  to  be  paying  on  account  of  a 
concealed  crime. 


164      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

This  would  be  the  immediate  opinion  of  the  world, 
if  the  United  States  is  beheld  to  be  declaring  at  the  same 
time  that  she  had  no  hand  in  the  Isthmian  revolution, 
and  is  therefore  under  no  liability  to  Colombia  for  dam- 
ages, and  simultaneously  to  be  paying  a  heavy  sum  to 
get  rid  of  the  claim  of  Colombia. 

The  only  possible  interpretation  would  be:  a  public 
confession  of  breach  of  international  faith. 

L'enfer  est  pave  de  bonnes  intentions.  He  who  im- 
agined good  heartedly  this  fine  solution  is  a  master  in 
paving  the  lower  regions. 

Second. — Impression  on  Spanish  Americans. 

To  the  demonstration  which  would  result  thus  from 
such  an  action — namely,  the  admission  of  the  United 
States  to  having  played  a  Machiavellian  trick  upon 
Colombia — would  be  added,  in  Spanish-American  hearts, 
the  incurable  and  bitter  resentment  of  the  insulting 
offer  of  a  little  money  compensation  for  a  patriotic 
wrong. 

In  a  case  like  this,  the  rules  applicable  to  treaties  of 
peace  after  a  war  would  not  be  justified.  In  a  treaty 
of  peace  money  questions  come  in  natural  order  with 
other  conditions. 

But  in  this  case,  when  the  United  States  maintains, 
with  perfect  justice  and  absolute  propriety,  that  she 
has  not  done  anything  else  but  what  was  her  rigorous 
obligation  according  to  her  treaty  duties  and  to  the 
rules  of  international  law;  and  when,  immediately 
afterward,  she  appears  to  confess  in  fact  what  she  denies 
in  theory  and  offers  a  lump  sum  of  money  to  heal  the 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      165 

wound  and  to  redress  the  wrong,  she  would  be  adopting 
an  attitude  which  would  be  a  direct  offence  to  the  senti- 
ment of  dignity  and  to  the  natural  pride  of  all  South 
Americans.  It  would  amount  to  a  slight  which  would 
be  felt  from  the  frontier  of  Arizona  to  the  Strait  of 
Magellan. 

No.  Really  I  cannot  imagine  any  move  more  danger- 
ous and  more  impolitic  than  such  a  one. 

Pallas  Athene  would  be  replaced  by  a  female  broker 
of  suspicious  deals. 

Most  respectfully  yours, 

P.  BUNAU-VARILLA. 

I  have  not  a  word  to  withdraw  from  that  letter 
but  I  have  something  to  add. 

The  entire  lack  of  any  justified  argument  in 
favour  of  a  payment  as  an  indemnity  for  the  se- 
session  of  Panama  is  existing  to-day  as  in  Novem- 
ber, 1903.  Nothing  has  filled  the  hollow  of  Colom- 
bian claims.  But  a  new  light  has  been  thrown  on 
the  cause  of  her  attitude  in  1902  and  1903. 

The  Great  War  has  acted  like  a  violent  storm 
scratching  the  surface  of  the  earth  and  exposing 
to  the  light  of  day  the  underground  cables  trans- 
mitting the  electrical  energy. 

The  Great  War  has  uncovered  the  concealed 
cables  transmitting  to  all  nations  of  the  earth  the 


166      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

calumnies,  the  sophisms,  and  the  nerve-racking 
theories  of  false  patriotism  by  which  innocent 
nations  were  practically  driven  mad  for  the  bene- 
fit of  German  plans. 

The  Great  War  has  disclosed  the  system  of  cables 
commanding — from  Berlin — the  anti- American  and 
dishonest  policy  of  Colombia  and  furthering  the 
piratical  policy  of  Germany,  toward  the  capture  of 
the  Panama  Canal  against  the  will  of  the  Isthmians. 

This  is  a  new  and  powerful  justification  of  Pana- 
ma, when  revolting  against  the  abominable  tyranny 
exercised  by  Colombia  for  the  benefit  and  at  the 
suggestion  of  the  Boche.  But  there  is  no  base 
to  be  found  for  an  indemnity  in  the  action  of  the 
United  States  any  more  than  there  is  in  the  action 
of  Panama.  The  American  Government  had  been 
played  with  and  ill  treated  by  Colombia.  There 
is  no  reproach  to  impute  to  the  IT.  S.  policy. 

In  preparing  the  revolution  I  avoided  anything 
that  could  be  interpreted  as  a  connivance  between 
Washington  and  the  insurgents.  If  President 
Roosevelt  went  with  the  high  speed  which  was 
indispensable  for  final  success,  after  the  revolution 
became  a  fact,  it  was  because  I  had  carefully  re- 
spected his  independence. 

Evidently  the  quickness  of  his  actions  exposed 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      167 

him  to  the  most  poisonous  arrows,  largely  made  in 
Germany.  He  would  have  been  unable  to  stand 
their  contact  if  I  had  not  on  purpose  left  aside 
everything  which  might  have  diminished  his  liberty 
and  therefore  hampered  his  action. 

People  may  smile  while  speaking  of  a  Roosevelt 
"staged  revolution";  their  smile  will  simply  expose 
their  own  gullibility  in  believing  the  tales  of  im- 
aginative wickedness. 

I  wish  to  caution  the  reader  in  advance  against 
the  impression  that  the  American  Government  had 
a  hand  in  the  Panama  Revolution,  because  such  a 
statement  is  absolutely  fabricated — and  devoid  of 
any  foundation  in  fact. 

It  would  have  been,  as  Talleyrand  said,  more 
than  a  crime;  it  would  have  been  a  fault.  Neither 
the  fault  nor  the  crime  was  committed.  If  either 
had  been,  the  Panama  Canal  would  probably  be 
to-day  in  the  hands  of  the  Boche  and  the  history 
of  the  world  would  not  perhaps  have  registered 
his  defeat  now. 

AN  UNEXPECTED   TURN  OF  AFFAIRS 

On  the  6th  of  June,  1903,  everybody  thought 
that  the  period  of  antagonism  to  the  American- 
ization of  the  Canal  had  been  finally  closed  by 


168      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

the  signature  of  the  Hay-Herran  Treaty.  I  re- 
ceived in  Paris  on  that  day  a  letter  from  a  dis- 
tinguished personality  with  whom  I  had  had  no 
previous  relations.  As  he  was  arriving  from 
Bogota  he  expressed  the  desire  to  give  me  im- 
portant information. 

In  a  subsequent  interview  he  said  to  me: 

I  have  followed  with  passionate  interest  your  pa- 
triotic campaign  for  rescuing  the  Panama  Canal  enter- 
prise from  complete  destruction.  I  am  convinced 
that  President  Marroquin,  with  whom  I  had  several 
talks,  shares  your  views.  I  am,  however,  very  pes- 
simistic about  the  turn  of  things. 

There  is  around  old  Marroquin  a  gang  of  men  I  pro- 
foundly distrust.  Beware  of  treacherous  surprises. 

MY    WARNING   TO   THE   PRESIDENT    OF   COLOMBIA 

I  then  decided  to  send  a  new  cable  message  to 
Marroquin  for  strengthening  his  hands  at  the 
opening  of  the  Colombian  Congress.  In  it  I  de- 
cided to  speak  openly  of  the  secession  of  Panama. 

The  cablegram  was  sent  on  the  13th  of  June  from 
Paris  and  delivered  on  the  27th  to  the  President. 

Here  is  this  important  message,  in  which  were 
foretold  the  events  that  were  going  to  take  place 
less  than  five  months  later: 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      169 

MARROQUIN,  President  Republic  Bogota 

Beg  to  submit  respectfully  following. 

[1]  One  must  admit  as  a  fundamental  principle  the 
only  party  that  can  now  build  the  Panama  Canal  is 
the  United  States  and  that  neither  European  govern- 
ments nor  private  financiers  would  dare  to  fight  either 
against  the  Monroe  Doctrine  or  American  Treasury  for 
building  Panama  Canal  in  case  Americans  return  to 
Nicaragua  if  Congress  [Colombian]  does  not  ratify 
treaty, 

(2)  It  results  from  this  evident  principle  that  failure 
of  ratification  opens  only  two  ways. 

Either  construction  of  Nicaragua  Canal  and  absolute 
loss  to  Colombia  of  the  incalculable  advantages  result- 
ing from  construction  on  her  territory  of  the  great 
artery  of  universal  commerce  or  construction  of  Panama 
Canal  after  secession  and  declaration  of  independence 
of  the  Isthmus  of  Panama  under  protection  of  the  United 
States,  as  has  happened  in  Cuba. 

I  hope  that  your  high,  patriotic  policy  will  save  your 
country  from  the  two  precipices  where  would  perish 
either  the  prosperity  or  the  integrity  of  Colombia  and 
whither  would  lead  the  advice  of  blinded  people  or  of 
evildoers  who  wish  to  reject  treaty  or  to  modify  it, 
which  would  amount  to  the  same  thing. 

PHILIPPE  BUNAU-VARILLA. 

I  do  not  think  that  an  event  of  world  import- 
ance was  ever  traced  more  exactly  on  the  wall 
about  five  months  before  it  happened.  Colombia 


170      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

cannot  accuse  me  of  having  taken  her  by  surprise, 
or  of  having  defeated  the  Boche  intrigues  without 
stating  in  advance  how  it  would  be  done. 

The  news  published  by  the  New  York  Herald  in 
Paris,  as  soon  as  the  Colombian  Congress  was 
opened,  confirmed  the  pessimistic  impressions 
formed  by  my  new  friend  while  he  was  in  Bogota. 

President  Marroquin  had  presented  the  treaty 
in  a  very  fair  but  very  weak  manner.  He  had 
taken  the  attitude  of  Pontius  Pilate,  and  washed 
his  hands  of  the  result. 

FANATIC  APPEALS  TO  FRENZIED  PASSIONS  IN  BOGOTA 

The  White  Bolsheviki  of  Bogota  had  frightened 
the  reasonable  citizens  just  as  the  White  Bolsheviki 
of  France  had  operated  during  the  period  of  de- 
struction of  the  great  Panama  Canal  enterprise. 

It  was  the  same  exasperated  appeals  to  the  high- 
est patriotism,  and  to  serene  justice  to  commit 
precisely  the  acts  which  were  most  dangerous  for 
the  country  and  most  hurtful  for  justice. 

One  could  not  help  feeling  that  they  were  the 
result  of  similar  passions  brought  to  a  state  of 
frenzy  by  a  poisoned  propaganda  of  the  same 
origin.  We  now  know  that  origin  which  we  only 
suspected  then:  it  was  Berlin. 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      171. 

To  give  a  sample  of  the  mode  of  propaganda 
employed  in  Bogota  to  destroy  the  Canal  project 
let  me  quote  a  small  paragraph  from  the  Correo 
National.  It  was  published  on  the  llth  of  May, 
1903,  above  the  signature  of  a  Senator  Perez  y 
Soto: 

The  Hay-Herran  Treaty  will  be  rejected  unanimously 
by  both  Houses. 

This  is  what  I  hope,  because  there  will  not  be  a  single 
representative  of  the  Nation  who  will  listen  to  the 
voices  of  those  who  have  sold  themselves,  and  who  have 
been  impudent  enough  to  recommend  this  shameful 
contract.  In  spite  of  everything  the  ignominy  which 
Herran  has  cast  upon  Colombia's  good  name  will  never 
be  obliterated. 

The  gallows  would  be  a  very  light  penalty  for  such  a 
criminal. 

This  is  the  prototype  of  the  Boche-inspired 
propaganda. 

It  bears  the  same  certificate  of  origin  as  Dru- 
mont's  denunciation  in  1890  of  the  Panama  Canal 
and  of  its  immortal  creator,  Ferdinand  de  Lesseps. 

We  read  in  the  "Last  Battle,"  Drumont's 
book  published  in  Paris  to  destroy  the  Panama 
enterprise  ( speaking  of  Ferdinand  de  Lesseps) : 

This  scoundrel  walks  about  as  a  triumphant  hero. 


172      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

Same  literature,  same  object,  same  methods; 
the  employment  of  the  same  moral  poisoned  gases 
by  the  infamous  Boche. 

From  the  beginning  of  the  session  of  the  Colom- 
bian Congress,  June  20,  1903,  to  its  end,  October 
31st  of  same  year,  only  one  man  spoke  nobly :  that 
was  Senator  Obaldia.  The  Canal  treaty  was  re- 
jected on  the  12th  of  August.  Nobody  had  dared 
to  defend  it  except  Obaldia. 

THE  PROPOSITION  OF  NEL  OSPINA — MY  CABLEGRAM 

A  group  of  senators — at  the  head  of  which  was 
the  vice-president  of  the  Senate,  Nel  Ospina — 
proposed  a  blackmail  pure  and  simple  on  the 
French  Panama  Company. 

They  demanded  $10,000,000  from  that  company 
for  permission  to  transfer  its  property  to  the 
United  States. 

This  proposition  was  expressly  violating  the 
principle  which  was  laid  at  the  base  of  the  negotia- 
tions, that  of  the  independence  between  the  con- 
ditions of  Colombia  and  those  of  the  Company. 
This  had  been  accepted  in  writing  by  Martinez 
Silva  in  1901,  in  Colombia's  behalf. 

One  might  harshly  condemn  Senator  Nel  Ospina 
for  that  immoral  proposition.  On  the  contrary,  he 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      173 

presented  it  in  order  to  try  to  avoid  a  still  greater 
and  still  less  excusable  immorality:  the  confiscation, 
pure  and  simple  of  the  Canal  property.  I  knew 
Senor  Nel  Ospina;  I  had  met  him  and  I  had  a  high 
opinion  of  his  judgment. 

On  August  17th  I  cabled  him  this  last  appeal 
to  the  Colombian  notion  of  justice,  common  sense, 
and  judgment: 

NEL  OSPINA, SENATOR,  Bogota. 

I  appeal  to  your  scientific  spirit  to  spare  contempo- 
rary history  the  terrible  and  immediate  consequences 
for  Colombia  of  the  rejection  or  amendment  of  the 
Panama  Treaty. 

This  would  be  equivalent  to  stabbing  your  country 
to  the  heart,  destroying  its  prosperity  and  its  interests, 
whereas  ratification  insures  a  glorious  future. 

P.  BUNAU-VAKILLA. 

I  cannot  be  accused  of  not  having  attempted 
everything  to  point  out  to  Colombia  the  right  way. 
But  she  was  lured  to  the  abyss  by  her  foolish 
White  Bolsheviki,  carefully  drugged  by  German 
moral  chemistry. 

DECISION  TO   CONFISCATE   THE   FRENCH    PROPERTY 

The  resolution  was  taken  to  confiscate  cynically 
and  hypocritically  the  French  concession  on  the 
31st  of  October  of  the  following  year  (1904). 


174      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

That  confiscation  was  necessary  for  putting  the 
whole  matter  in  the  hands  of  Colombia.  Once 
that  stage  was  reached,  it  was  easy  to  establish  a 
compact  with  Germany  where  neither  the  United 
States  nor  the  French  Company  would  have  had 
anything  to  say. 

Even  the  Monroe  Doctrine  objections  would 
have  been  easily  pushed  aside  by  an  artful  cam- 
ouflage of  Germany  under  the  garb  of  a  "strictly 
Colombian"  company. 

The  solution  of  the  problem  was  soon  found  by 
the  Colombiano-German  casuists  of  Bogota.  The 
concession  of  the  French  Company  expired  on 
October  31,  1904,  but  a  prorogation  of  six  years 
had  been  given  her  in  1900  against  a  cash  payment 
of  $1,000,000. 

In  that  year  Colombia  was  in  a  state  of  revolu- 
tion. 

The  Colombian  Constitution  wisely  foresees 
that  in  a  state  of  war  or  of  revolution  the  Legisla- 
tive power  is  entrusted  to  the  Executive  power. 
The  prorogation,  consequently,  had  been  made  by 
the  Executive  power  in  virtue  of  its  constitutional 
authority  in  such  a  situation. 

When  it  was  decided  at  Bogota,  in  view  of  the 
German  arrangements,  to  confiscate  the  French 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      175 

property  an  adequate  method  was  soon  devised. 
A  commission  of  the  Colombian  Senate  had  to  re- 
port on  the  matter  of  the  French  concession  and 
on  October  14,  1903,  the  report  was  made  public. 
It  sustained  the  incredible  theory  that  the  Colom- 
bian Congress  could,  at  its  option,  either  annul  or 
confirm  the  prorogation  given  in  1900. 

With  a  remarkable  legal  legerdemain  the  solemn 
contract  between  Colombia  and  the  French  Com- 
pany was  transformed  into  a  simple  project  which 
the  Congress  had  the  right  either  to  accept  or  to 
refuse. 

Having  thus  suspended  by  a  thread  the  sword  of 
Damocles  over  the  head  of  the  French  Company, 
the  worthy  commission  proposed  to  postpone  to 
the  next  year  the  decision  to  cut  that  thread. 

They  said,  among  other  monstrosities: 

By  the  31st  of  October  of  next  year,  that  is  to  say  when 
the  next  Congress  shall  have  met  in  ordinary  session, 
the  Concession  will  have  expired  and  every  privilege  with  it. 

In  that  case  the  Republic  will  become  possessor  and 
owner  without  any  need  of  a  previous  judicial  decision, 
and  without  any  indemnity,  of  the  Canal  itself  and  of  the 
adjuncts  belonging  to  it  according  to  the  contract  of  1878 
and  1890. 

The  conclusion  of  this  remarkable  report  was 


176      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

to  do  nothing  and  to  defer  indefinitely  the  grant  of 
any  authorization  to  the  Executive  power  to  make  a 
new  treaty  with  the  United  States. 

Between  the  lines  of  this  unique  document  it 
could  be  read  that  on  the  31st  of  October  of  the 
following  year,  Colombia — having  become  pro- 
prietor of  the  Canal — would  finish  it.  The  neces- 
sary, the  indispensable  elements  of  that  completion 
would  obviously  be  German  money  and  German 
engineers.  Both  were  to  carry  out  the  stolen 
plans  of  French  genius. 

The  Senate  followed  textually  the  recommenda- 
tions of  her  worthy  commission  and  adjourned 
fifteen  days  later,  on  the  31st  of  October,  1903. 

If  there  ever  triumphed  a  hypocritical,  treacher- 
ous policy  for  despoiling  America  and  France  of 
their  natural  proprietary  or  political  rights  for  the 
benefit  of  the  contemptible  Boche  it  triumphed 
then  in  Colombia. 

But  that  triumph  was  to  be  short  lived  because 
the  mine  I  had  prepared  was  soon  to  explode. 

By  her  birth  on  the  third  of  November,  1903, 
the  Republic  of  Panama  annihilated  these  das- 
tardly plans  three  days  after  their  explicit  and  final 
adoption  in  Bogota  by  the  Colombian  Senate. 

I  am  going  to  explain  how  I  was  happy  enough 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      177 

to  be  able  to  determine  an  event  productive  of 
such  incalculable  consequences  such  as  the  creation 
of  the  new  American  republic. 

PROPHETIC   ARTICLE    IN   THE   PARIS    "MATIN" 

I  had,  as  may  be  remembered,  twice  announced 
the  Panama  secession  by  cablegram  to  President 
Marroquin;  once  implicitly  on  November  23, 1902, 
and  once  explicitly  on  June  13,  1903;  and  once 
to  the  vice-president  of  the  Senate,  Nel  Ospina,  on 
August  17,  1903.  I  had  said  plainly  and  openly 
that  the  separation  of  Panama  would  be  the  out- 
come of  a  rejection  of  the  treaty  ensuring  the  com- 
pletion of  the  Canal  by  the  United  States. 

In  order  to  propagate  the  same  view  on  the 
events  in  course  of  development,  I  published  in  the 
Matin  of  Paris  on  September  2, 1903,  what  may  be 
termed  a  prophetic  article.  Speaking  of  President 
Roosevelt  I  said: 

He  can  wait  .  .  .  until  the  Revolution — which, 
as  will  be  seen  from  our  despatches,  is  smouldering  in 
the  "State  of  Panama" — bursts  out,  and  until  the  prov- 
ince declares  herself  independent,  as  it  has  done  twice 
already  during  the  last  century,  in  1840  and  in  1856. 
In  that  case  the  President  would  merely  have  to  make  a 
treaty  with  the  new  State  of  Panama. 


178      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 
The  article  concluded  thus: 

By  her  untimely  and  inconsiderate  obstruction  to  the 
realization  of  the  greatest  progress  which  now  lies 
within  the  reach  of  man,  in  the  arrangement  of  the 
planet,  Colombia  is  overstepping  her  property  rights. 
In  thus  barring  the  road  to  progress  she  acts  like  a 
landlord  who  tries  to  take  a  stand  on  his  rights  of  owner- 
ship to  prevent  the  construction  of  a  railroad  or  of  a 
road  across  his  estate. 

The  property  rights  of  private  persons,  like  those  of 
nations,  have  a  limit  which  is  the  superior  law  of  the 
necessity  of  circulation  of  the  human  collectivity. 

And  it  is  this  superior  law  which  President  Roosevelt 
will  enforce,  and  which  it  will  be  his  next  step  to  enforce. 

I  had  also  in  the  same  article  advanced  the 
idea  of  a  possible  intervention  of  the  United  States, 
on  the  Isthmus,  as  a  consequence  of  the  treaty  of 
1846. 

In  this  treaty  with  New  Granada,  the  predeces- 
sor of  Colombia,  the  United  States  had  received 
the  right  of  way  across  the  Isthmus  of  Panama. 
She  had,  as  the  price  paid  for  that  privilege,  under- 
taken to  keep  open  and  free  the  transit  between 
the  two  oceans  and  to  protect  the  Isthmus  against 
foreign  aggression. 

I  suggested  in  the  Matin  article  that  the  United 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      179 

States,  having  the  right  of  way,  possessed  also  im- 
plicitly the  faculty  of  carrying  out  the  works 
necessary  for  the  enjoyment  of  that  right. 

Never  was  a  suggestion  more  a  propos,  since — 
as  will  be  seen  later  on — it  enabled  me  to  get  an 
exact  knowledge  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's  disposition 
regarding  the  Panama  Canal  policy. 

Having  thus  done  all  I  could  in  Paris,  I  intended 
to  return  to  the  United  States  to  take  a  hand  in 
the  matter,  if  needed. 

I  expected  to  be  in  Washington  for  the  return  of 
political  activity  in  November. 

RETURN   TO   THE    UNITED    STATES    IN 
SEPTEMBER,    1903 

A  quite  unforeseen  incident — due  to  the  pre- 
occupations which  the  state  of  health  of  my  young 
son  necessitated — led  me  to  leave  for  the  States 
in  the  middle  of  September,  1903.  I  landed  in 
New  York  on  the^SnaT) 

The  following  dayThastened  to  pay  a  visit  to 
an  old  banker  and  commission  merchant  of  Panama, 
Mr.  Lindo,  head  of  the  firm  of  Piza  Nephews 
&  Co.  He  was  in  close  and  continuous  connection 
with  the  Isthmus  and  better  fitted  than  any  one 
else  to  give  me  reliable  information. 


180      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

"Well,  Mr.  Lindo,"  said  I,  after  the  first  ex- 
change of  compliments,  "is  the  rumour  true  that  the 
people  of  Panama  are  going  to  make  a  revolution?  " 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders  in  a  disheartened 
way,  and  said:  "Faltan  recursos"  (They  have  no 
financial  means). 

"What!"  said  I,  disappointed  at  this  answer. 
"These  people  who  are  ever  ready  to  make  a 
revolution  for  insignificant  causes  are  going  to 
keep  quiet  when  Colombia  decrees  that  they  must 
die  of  hunger?" 

"  It  can't  be  helped,"  he  said.  "  Without  money 
a  revolution  cannot  be  brought  about  any  more  than 
a  war.  But  if  you  care  to  know  what  the  situation 
really  is  I  will  ask  Amador  to  call  and  see  you." 

"What!"  said  I,  surprised;  "is  Amador  here?" 

"Yes,"  answered  Lindo  (lowering  his  voice); 
"he  has  come  precisely  to  obtain  the  wherewithal 
for  bringing  about  a  revolution.  But  he  has  failed 
and  is  sailing  for  Panama  in  a  few  days.  He  will 
tell  you  all.  He  is  in  despair."* 

AMADOR   HASTENS  TO   COME  AND    SEE   ME 

When  I  reached  my  hotel,  the  Waldorf-Astoria, 


'Doctor  Amador  was  a  prominent  physician  of  Panama.  He  was  attached  to  the 
Panama  railroad  and  had  been  consequently  a  member  of  the  Staff  subordinated  to  the 
General  Direction  which  I  held  in  1885. 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      181 

in  the  evening  I  found  two  cards  of  Doctor  Ama- 
dor.  He  had  called  at  9.05  p.  M.  and  again  at 
9.25  p.  M.  and  asked  for  an  immediate  appointment. 

I  telephoned  at  once  to  the  Endicott  Hotel, 
where  he  lived,  that  I  would  receive  him  on  the 
following  day  at  10.30  A.  M. 

On  that  day,  the(^3rd  of  September,  when  the 
Hay-Herran  Treaty  was  lapsing  for  want  of 
ratification,  was  established  between  Amador  and 
myself  the  link  through  which  Panama  was  saved. 

On  the  day  following,  at  the  stated  hour,  Amador 
entered  room  No.  1162  of  the  Waldorf-Astoria 
which  I  occupied  and  which  deserves  to  be  con- 
sidered as  the  cradle  of  the  liberation  of  the  Isth- 
mus. 

The  old  Doctor  was  pale  and  haggard.  His 
mind  had  obviously  been  labouring  a  long  time 
under  terrible  preoccupations.  A  strange  fire 
burned  in  his  eyes.  He  began  to  tell  me  the  his- 
tory of  a  plan  of  rebellion  laid  in  Panama  and  of  a 
mission  to  New  York  entrusted  to  an  American 
residing  usually  in  Panama. 

This  man  was  to  enquire  if  subsidies,  arms,  am- 
munition, ships,  the  help  of  the  American  Army 
and  of  the  American  Navy  could  be  obtained  in 
America  for  the  projected  revolution. 


182      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

CHIMERICAL  HOPES  GIVEN  AMADOR 

He  had  come  back  with  assurances  from  a  man 
having  some  prominence  in  Isthmian  affairs,  but 
without  governmental  position,  that  all  these  things 
would  be  ready  whenever  the  Isthmians  were  dis- 
posed to  revolt. 

"This  is  too  good  to  be  true,"  said  the  conspira- 
tors, and  they  had  sent  Amador  to  verify.  To  the 
utmost  delight  of  the  delegate  the  very  same  as- 
surances had  been  given  to  him  again  just  as  they 
had  been  to  the  first  envoy. 

Everything  then  seemed  to  point  toward  the 
culmination  of  his  most  ardent  hopes,  when  sud- 
denly his  protector  turned  his  back  on  him. 

Amador  had  got  from  him  the  explicit  promise 
to  go  together  to  Washington  in  order  to  see 
Secretary  Hay.  Amador  wanted  to  settle  finally 
with  the  Secretary  of  State  a  transaction.  This 
transaction  was  in  Amador's  chimerical  mind  to 
be  a  formal  pledge  in  writing  to  sustain  the  Panama 
Revolution  with  the  army,  with  the  navy,  and  with 
the  treasury  of  the  United  States. 

When  everything  had  been  arranged,  as  Amador 
believed,  to  make  the  decisive  trip  to  Washington 
the  supposed  powerful  intermediary  turned  his 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      183 

back  on  the  unfortunate  delegate  of  the  Isth- 
mians, and  did  not  go  with  him  anywhere. 

With  intense  emotion  and  maddened  rage 
Amador  concluded: 

"Whenever  I  went  to  see  him,  orders  had  been 
given  to  the  effect  that  he  was  not  in.  I  had  to 
instal  myself  in  the  hall,  to  camp  there,  and,  so  to 
speak,  to  besiege  his  office. 

"Nothing  resulted  from  it.  And  here  I  am. 
All  is  lost.  At  any  moment  the  conspiracy  may 
be  discovered,  and  my  friends  put  on  trial,  for 
high  treason,  sentenced  to  death,  and  their  prop- 
erties confiscated.  I,  at  first,  decided  to  return 
to  Panama  to  share  their  fate.  But  I  am  hesitat- 
ing. If  my  friends  are  shot,  I  prefer  to  devote  my 
life  to  avenging  them  on  the  man  who  will  have 
been  the  cause  of  their  deaths." 

While  Amador  spoke  I  had  a  clear  vision  of  the 
entire  drama.  I  understood  instantly  who  was 
the  man  whose  foolish  and  imaginary  assurances 
had  made  the  poor  doctor  fall  into  the  deadly  pit. 

HOW   AMADOR   UNDERSTOOD   THE   REVOLUTION 

"Calm  yourself,  my  dear  Doctor,"  I  said, 
"appeal  to  reason  not  to  passion.  Tell  me  what 
your  hopes,  what  your  chances  were;  what  method 


184      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

you  intended  to  employ.  Tell  me  all  that  calmly, 
methodically,  precisely." 

From  the  explanations  given  by  Amador  it 
appeared  that  Colombia,  exhausted  by  three  years 
of  civil  war,  had  not  sent  new  soldiers  to  Panama. 
Her  garrison  of  five  hundred  men  had  been  there 
for  many  years — had  become  permeated  with  the 
Panama  spirit — and  had  no  more  any  sentiment 
of  devotion  for  Colombia. 

Amador  added  that,  with  six  million  dollars' 
subsidy,  he  could  buy  arms,  ammunitions,  and 
ships,  sink  the  Colombian  flotilla,  and  have  the 
immediate  support  of  the  local  garrison. 

I  dismissed  Amador  with  soothing  words  though 
I  considered  his  ideas  as  totally  chimerical.  The 
raising  of  $6,000,000  was  an  empty  dream.  The 
time  necessary  to  get  the  arms  and  the  ships  must 
be  counted  by  months.  During  that  time  Colom- 
bia would  certainly  renew  her  garrison  and  send 
her  wiry,  loyal  Indian  fighters  to  the  Isthmus  to 
consolidate  her  tyranny. 

"  Let  me  think,  my  dear  Doctor.  Perhaps  I  shall 
find  for  you  a  way  out  of  the  difficulty.  At  any  rate, 
our  communications  must  henceforth  be  sub  rosa. 
When  I  'phone  to  you  I  shall  call  myself  'Jones.' 
When  you  call  me  you  take  the  name  of  'Smith.'" 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      185 

I  shook  his  hand  and,  having  recovered  his 
balance  of  mind,  he  went,  happy  to  have  grasped 
a  hand  both  friendly  and  firm,  that  of  a  man  on 
whom,  long  before,  he  had  looked  as  on  his  highest 
commanding  officer. 

As  soon  as  he  had  gone,  I  saw  that  Chance  had 
brought  to  me  the  precious  seed  of  the  whole 
revolutionary  movement  against  Colombia  and 
her  anti-canal  policy. 

The  seed  was  actually  without  any  value,  it  was 
practically  crushed  and  destroyed.  There  was  no 
practical  idea,  but  there  was  a  spontaneous  aggre- 
gation of  energies  and  wills  to  fight  the  Germano- 
Colombian  conspiracy  of  Bogota.  These  energies 
could  be  used  with  a  rational  plan. 

WHAT   ARE  PRESIDENT   ROOSEVELT'S 
DISPOSITIONS?' 

If  I  was  to  encourage  these  men  to  act  I  had  to 
find  out  first  of  all  what  were  the  dispositions  of 
President  Roosevelt  in  regard  to  Panama.  I  had 
not,  up  to  that  time,  had  any  relations  with  him. 

He  had  formerly  been  a  most  sincere  and  firm 
believer  in  Nicaragua.  He  had  not  been  submitted 
to  the  pro-Panama  influence  of  Hanna,  as  Hanna 
was  not  his  personal  friend.  Did  there  not — 


186      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

from  the  personal  antagonism  which  separated 
them — also  result  an  antagonism  as  to  the  political 
ideas? 

To  Hanna  had  been  due  the  victory  of  Panama 
in  Congress.  Did  not  that  fact  predispose  Roose- 
velt still  to  adhere  to  his  old  allegiance  to  the 
Nicaragua  Canal?  In  one  word,  was  not  President 
Roosevelt  happy  to  see  the  failure  of  the  Colom- 
bian treaty? — and  was  he  not  going  to  steer  the 
ship  of  State  toward  Nicaragua?  That  was  the 
question ! 

Of  course  the  very  first  thing  to  be  done  was  to 
discover  the  President's  state  of  mind  on  the 
subject. 

AN  EXTRAORDINARY  AND  REVEALING  INCIDENT 

An  unexpected  incident  furnished  me,  within 
seven  days  of  my  arrival  in  New  York,  the  most 
positive  knowledge  of  the  intentions  of  the  Presi- 
dent. I  was  informed  about  this  all-important 
and  secret  question  as  if  I  had  been  present  at  one 
of  the  cabinet  meetings  of  the  White  House.  And 
nobody  had  betrayed  any  confidence,  and  no  im- 
proper question  had  passed  from  my  lips. 

This  is  a  little  but  weighty  chapter  of  the  libera- 
tion of  the  Isthmus.  Like  many  others  of  the 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      187 

same  history  it  would  seem  to  belong  to  the  domain 
of  fiction,  yet  it  is  simple  reality. 

One  of  the  best  friends  of  mine  was  Professor 
Burr,  the  great  American  engineer,  Professor  at 
the  Columbia  University  who,  in  the  Isthmian 
Canal  Commission,  adopted  first  with  George 
Morrison  my  views  on  Panama. 

I  hastened  to  pay  him  a  visit,  in  order  to  learn 
what  he  thought  about  my  suggestion  of  building 
the  Canal  on  the  strength  of  the  treaty  of  1846, 
with  New  Granada,  conferring  to  the  United 
States  the  right  of  way  across  the  Isthmus  of 
Panama. 

This  solution  which  I  had  developed,  in  the 
Matin  article  on  September  2nd,  was,  of  course,  the 
most  desirable,  in  my  opinion.  It  rendered  un- 
necessary the  hazards  of  a  revolution  and  opened 
an  easy  and  certain  way  to  success. 

My  eminent  friend  was  not  very  enthusiastic 
about  the  solution.  He  said,  however,  that  in  the 
course  of  a  conversation,  one  of  his  colleagues  at 
the  University  had  expressed  similar  ideas  before 
him.  I  asked  him  who  this  colleague  was,  and 
expressed  a  desire  to  meet  him.  This  was  quickly 
arranged  and  on  the  29th  of  September,  in  Pro- 
fessor Burr's  office,  I  met  Mr.  Bassett  Moore, 


188      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

Professor  of  Diplomacy  at  the  Columbia  Uni- 
versity. 

The  conservation  showed  that  his  ideas  on  this 
momentous  subject  were  almost  identical  with 
mine.  The  Professor  at  a  given  moment  said  that 
he  had  been  surprised  recently  to  see  his  own 
theory  exposed  in  a  French  paper.  I  pulled  from 
my  pocket  the  folded  copy  of  the  Matin  of  the 
2nd  of  September.  Mr.  Bassett  Moore,  recogniz- 
ing the  paper  by  its  peculiar  shade,  before  I  had 
unfolded  it,  exclaimed:  "That  is  the  paper."  I 
was  somewhat  surprised  to  learn  of  Prof.  Bassett 
Moore  having  had  cognizance  of  the  Matin,  which, 
in  spite  of  its  great  circulation  in  Paris,  was  diffi- 
cult then  to  obtain  in  America. 

Seeing  the  Professor  so  well  disposed,  I  saw  a 
magnificent  opportunity  to  use  his  authority  for 
the  benefit  of  the  Panama  cause. 

"Why,"  I  asked,  "do  you  not  make  public 
these  ideas  which,  if  adopted,  may  ensure  the 
success  of  a  great  national  undertaking?  Why 
do  you  not  write  a  letter  or  an  article  to  the 
Sun  ?" 

The  attitude  of  Bassett  Moore  suddenly  became 
embarrassed.  As  I  pressed  him  more  and  more, 
and  demonstrated  that  he  had  a  civic  duty  to 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      189 

accomplish,  and  that  he  ought  not  to  shirk  it,  he 
eventually  surrendered,  and  said: 

"I  cannot  do  what  you  wish.  I  formulated 
these  views,  and  the  conditions  in  which  I  formu- 
lated them  make  it  impossible  for  me  to  adopt  a 
public  attitude  at  the  present  stage  of  affairs." 

I  had  nothing  more  to  say.  I  felt  that  I  had 
touched  a  very  delicate  spot  and  I  withdrew  in 
order  to  learn  who  Mr.  Bassett  Moore  was  and 
what  could  be  the  reasons  which  obliged  him  to 
keep  secret  his  important  theory. 

I  went  straight  down  town  to  consult  with  my 
good  friend  and  wise  adviser  Frank  D.  Pavey. 

"Mr.  Bassett  Moore/'  said  he,  "is  the  closest 
friend  of Tresident  Roosevelt.  He  was  Assistant 
Secretary  of  State  when  President  Roosevelt  was 
Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy.  They  are  gen- 
erally considered  to  have  joined  their  influences  to 
unchain  the  Cuban  war.  They  have  remained 
very  close  friends  ever  since,  and  President  Roose- 
velt is  generally  considered  as  sharing  Bassett 
Moore's  diplomatic  views  and  always  taking  his 
advice  on  important  matters." 

"Well,"  I  answered,  "the  copy  of  the  Matin 
he  has  seen  might  have  been  shown  to  him  by 
President  Roosevelt  to  whom  I  had  sent  one  copy. 


190      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

It  is  obvious,  on  the  other  hand,  that  his  reserved 
attitude  is  due  to  the  fact  of  his  having  submitted 
to  the  President  a  report  that  must  remain  secret 
until  use  is  made  of  it." 

"Yes,"  replied  Pavey;  "that  is  just  the  thing, 
and  I  might  even  tell  you  on  what  day  President 
Roosevelt  showed  him  the  copy  of  the  Matin, 
the  16th  of  September.  On  that  day  Mr.  Roose- 
velt gave  a  party  at  Oyster  Bay  to  some  friends. 
On  then*  return  a  terrific  storm  practically  drenched 
every  one  of  them  and  their  names  were  given  by 
the  newspapers.  Bassett  Moore  was  among 
them." 

The  date  of  September  16th  entirely  corresponded 
with  the  arrival,  some  days  earlier,  of  the  paper  I 
had  sent  on  the  2nd  of  the  same  month,  to  Presi- 
dent Roosevelt's  summer  residence  at  Oyster  Bay. 

This  information  was  casting  a  brilliant  light  on 
the  whole  mysterious  question  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's 
dispositions. 

He  was  listening  to  the  advice  of  exerting  coer- 
cion on  Colombia,  on  the  strength  of  the  treaty 
of  1846.  This  fact  clearly  demonstrated  that  the 
mind  and  the  will  of  the  President  were  set  on 
Panama.  No  fear  of  a  turn  toward  Nicaragua  was 
visible. 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      191 

One  question  remained  to  be  cleared.  Of  the 
two  ways  opened — coercion  of  Colombia  by  the 
United  States  or  revolution  of  Panama  by  Amador 
— which  was  the  practical  one? 

All  my  inclinations  were  for  the  former,  but 
without  a  single  exception  all  my  friends  declared 
that  the  coercion  of  Colombia  would  never  be 
carried  out. 

"Do  not  forget, "  they  said,  "that  we  are  on  the 
eve  of  presidential  elections.  Do  not  forget  that 
Congress,  in  passing  the  Spooner  Bill,  has  stated 
that  the  Nicaragua  Canal  would  be  finally  adopted 
in  case  of  a  failure  to  obtain  the  concession  from 
Colombia.  To  coerce  Colombia  would  be  con- 
sidered a  formal  breach  of  the  Spooner  Law.  Do 
not  forget  that  the  Nicaragua  solution  is  by  an 
enormous  margin  the  more  popular  of  the  two. 
No  president  would  dare  to  risk  being  accused 
of  breaking  a  law  to  favour  an  unpopular  project 
when  the  presidential  elections  are  in  sight,  and 
when  he  has  to  be  submitted  to  election.  That 
would  be  the  doom  of  the  Republican  party." 

This  argumentation  was  convincing  and  left 
Panama  but  one  chance  of  survival:  the  Revolu- 
tion, and  it  was  a  slender  chance! 

I  decided  henceforth  to  concentrate  on  that 


192      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

one  object  all  my  power  of  observation  and  of 
action. 

I  left  for  Washington  early  in  October,  but  no- 
body I  knew  in  political  life  had  returned  from  the 
country,  and  I  came  back  without  any  informa- 
tion. 

IMPORTANT    INTERVIEW     WITH    PRESIDENT    ROOSE- 
VELT 

On  the  9th  of  October  I  returned  to  the  Ameri- 
can capital.  I  found  at  his  office  Mr.  Frank  B. 
Loomis,  First  Assistant  Secretary  of  State,  whom 
I  had  known  in  Paris  while  he  was  United  States 
Minister  to  Portugal.  I  spoke  to  him  of  the  Matin 
in  which  I  had  recently  acquired  an  important 
proprietary  interest. 

"  Then  you  ought  to  go  and  present  to  the  Presi- 
dent the  compliments  of  the  Matin.  Do  you  know 
Mr.  Roosevelt  personally?"  asked  Mr.  Loomis. 

"I  have  not  that  honour,"  I  replied. 

"I  am  going  to  telephone,"  said  Mr.  Loomis. 
"If  the  President  is  disengaged  he  will  be  glad  to 
see  you." 

The  quick  answer  was  that  the  President  was 
disposed  to  receive  me  that  same  day  at  12  o'clock. 
I  was,  as  may  be  understood,  very  happy  to  avail 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      193 

myself  of  this  opportunity  to  talk  over  the  delicate 
Panama  question  with  the  President  himself,  and 
to  observe  his  attitude,  and  take  the  necessary 
soundings. 

I  was  received  with  the  characteristic  open- 
heartedness  which  won  for  this  remarkable  man  so 
many  friends.  We  conversed  about  the  Matin.  I 
was  awaiting  an  opportunity  to  bring  up  the 
Panama  subject.  Mr.  Loomis  having  cited  the 
publication  of  the  famous  bordereau  in  the  Dreyfus 
affair,  as  being  among  the  great  achievements  of 
Le  Matin,  I  jumped  at  the  opportunity.  The 
bridge  was  found;  I  crossed  it. 

"Mr.  President,"  I  said,  "Captain  Dreyfus  has 
not  been  the  only  victim  of  detestable  political 
passions.  Panama  is  another." 

"Oh,  yes,"  exclaimed  the  President,  suddenly 
interested;  "that  is  true,  you  have  devoted  much 
time  and  effort  to  Panama,  Mr.  Bunau-Varilla. 
Well,  what  do  you  think  is  going  to  be  the  outcome 
of  the  present  situation?" 

It  was  then  or  never.  I  could  with  a  proper 
answer  learn  exactly  what  the  President  had  in 
mind.  I  remained  silent  for  a  moment,  and  then 
I  pronounced  the  following  four  words — in  a  slow, 
decided  manner: 


194      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

"Mr.  President,  a  revolution!" 

The  features  of  the  President  manifested  pro- 
found surprise. 

"A  revolution?"  he  repeated,  mechanically. 
Then  he  turned  instinctively  toward  Mr.  Loomis, 
who  had  remained  standing,  impassive,  and  said 
in  a  low  tone,  as  if  speaking  to  himself:  "A 
revolution?  .  .  .  Would  it  be  possible? 
.  .  .  But  if  it  became  a  reality,  what  would  be- 
come of  the  plan  we  had  thought  of?" 

I  had  an  intense  desire  to  say  to  him:  "Mr. 
President,  the  plan  that  you  had  thought  of  is 
coercion  of  Colombia,  based  on  the  treaty  of 
1846,  as  interpreted  by  Prof.  Bassett  Moore.  I 
have  supported  this  idea  in  an  article  in  the  Matin 
and  added  to  it  the  doctrine  of  the  Expropria- 
tion of  Sovereignty  for  reason  of  International 
Utility." 

Of  course  I  remained  mute,  and  I  concealed  my 
joy  at  hearing  the  interrogation  which  had  escaped 
from  the  mouth  of  the  President.  He  quickly 
recovered  himself,  and  asked: 

"What  makes  you  think  so?" 

There  was  no  interest  in  going  further.  I 
answered : 

"General  and  special  considerations,  Mr.  Presi- 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      195 

dent.  As  you  know,  the  revolutionary  spirit  is 
endemic  on  the  Isthmus.  There  is  almost  a  cer- 
tainty of  seeing  an  endemic  disease  spread  vio- 
lently when  the  circumstances  favourable  to  its 
development  have  reached  their  maximum.  Co- 
lombia has  decreed  the  ruin  of  the  people  of  the 
Isthmus.  They  will  not  let  things  go  any  further 
without  protesting  according  to  their  fashion. 
Their  fashion  is:  Revolution.  I  have,  further- 
more, certain  special  indications  that  corroborate 
these  general  considerations." 

The  conversation  ended  there.  I  had  no  desire 
to  speak  further,  and  the  President  on  his  side  did 
not  care  to  hear  more. 

WHAT  I   GATHERED  FROM  MY  VISIT  TO  THE 
PRESIDENT 

I  left  the  private  office  of  the  President,  being 
finally  in  possession  of  all  the  elements  necessary 
for  action. 

I  had,  at  last,  the  direct  confirmation  of  the 
deduction  which  thus  far  I  had  drawn  solely 
from  pure  reasoning:  "The  President  of  the 
United  States  is  holding  firm  for  Panama." 

If  a  revolution  were  to  generate  new  conditions 
favourable  to  the  acquisition  of  the  Canal  Zone 


'196      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

by  the  United  States,  President  Roosevelt  wo'uld 
immediately  seize  the  opportunity. 

I  was  henceforth  certain  of  this  capital  point, 
as  certain  as  if  a  solemn  contract  had  been  signed 
between  us.  No  word  had  been  pronounced,  no 
concealed  meaning  had  been  attached  to  any  sen- 
tence which  could  constitute  a  tie  between  us. 
His  liberty  was  as  complete  as  my  own. 

I  left  Washington,  having  extracted  the  first 
and  most  essential  of  the  unknown  quantities  from 
the  problem  confronting  me.  I  had  the  basic 
thought  of  the  American  Government,  as  to  the 
application  of  the  Spooner  Law,  without  having 
said  anything  or  heard  anything  in  confidence  or 
under  the  guarantee  of  secrecy. 

I   CONCEIVE   THE   THEORY   OP   THE   PANAMA 
REVOLUTION 

I  had  the  first  unknown  quantity:  the  disposi- 
tions of  the  President.  It  remained  for  me  to 
discover  the  second  one:  How  could  a  revolution 
be  made  successfully  at  Panama  without  the 
financial  cooperation  of  the  United  States,  and 
without  the  express  promise  of  her  military 
support? 

The  intense  satisfaction  I  felt  after  finding  the 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      197 

complete  solution  on  the  first  equation  led  me  to 
discover  also  what  still  remained  concealed. 

The  great  and  apparently  unsurmountable  ob- 
stacle was  the  raising  of  a  sum  of  $6,000,000  for 
the  necessary  armament.  In  trying  to  reduce  this 
demand  of  Amador,  the  light  suddenly  flashed 
across  my  mind  during  the  railway  journey  back 
to  New  York. 

What  was  going  to  be  the  use  of  this  $6,000,000, 
according  to  Amador  ?  To  buy  ships,  which  would  be 
equipped  for  war  in  order  to  sink  Colombia's  ships, 
and  to  prevent  the  transportation  of  her  troops. 

But  toward  what  places  were  these  military 
movements  to  be  feared?  Was  it  in  the  Isthmus 
itself?  By  no  means,  because  the  treaty  of  1846 
gave  to  the  United  States  the  right,  and  imposed 
upon  her  the  duty,  of  turning  any  belligerents 
away  from  the  line  of  transit. 

All  this  costly  war  machinery  would,  therefore, 
be  useful  solely  to  protect  the  insurrection  in  the 
western  part  of  the  Panama  province,  near  the 
frontier  of  Costa  Rica. 

The  Isthmus,  properly  speaking,  was  separated 
from  this  western  portion  by  immense  virgin 
forests,  while  toward  the  east  it  was  separated 
from  Colombia  by  an  impassable  wilderness. 


198      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

What  was  the  use  of  uniting,  in  the  same  revolu- 
tionary movement,  these  two  groups  of  territory 
so  distant  and  so  distinct?  Why  be  hampered  by 
the  irrational  conception  of  the  Department  of 
Panama?  Why  not  give,  as  territorial  limits  to 
the  new  Republic — at  all  events  at  the  outset — 
the  watersheds  of  the  Chagresand  of  the  Rio 
Grande? 

The  more  I  reflected  on  this  new  idea,  the  more 
clearly  did  I  behold  the  solution  of  all  the  diffi- 
culties. In  the  basins  of  these  two  rivers,  the 
common  watershed  of  which  passed  by  the  sum- 
mit of  Culebra,  there  were  no  inhabitants  who 
did  not  live  within  gunshot  of  the  line  of  com- 
munication between  the  oceans. 

The  duty  of  the  United  States  was  precisely  to 
exclude  all  fighting  within  gunshot  of  the  line  of 
the  railroad. 

THE   OBLIGATIONS  OF  THE   UNITED   STATES 

I  had  myself  seen  the  United  States,  in  1885, 
performing  her  duty  and  preventing  any  fighting 
in  this  zone. 

It  may  be  recalled  that  in  1885  a  revolutionary 
army,  commanded  by  General  Aizpuru,  had 
seized  Panama.  The  town  once  taken,  the  Amer- 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      199 

ican  troops  had  entered  Panama  to  prevent  dis- 
order. But  when  it  was  seen  that  the  Revolu- 
tionary Government  was  maintaining  order,  the 
American  forces  were  withdrawn,  and  they  con- 
fined themselves  to  garrisoning  the  railroad  and 
its  wharf,  the  sole  means  of  communication  with 
the  Pacific  Ocean. 

Some  days  later  two  ships  laden  with  Govern- 
ment troops  tried  to  land  at  the  wharf.  General 
Reyes,  who  commanded  the  Colombian  troops, 
was  invited  to  withdraw,  and  the  landing  was 
forbidden  by  the  American  officer  in  command, 
Commodore  MacCalla. 

I  had  seen  with  my  own  eyes,  therefore,  in  1885, 
the  Revolutionists  protected  from  the  aggression 
of  the  Government  troops  by  the  American  mili- 
tary authorities.  It  was  after  the  election  of  Presi- 
dent Cleveland,  when  the  Democratic  party  was 
in  power.  At  that  time  the  thought  of  making  an 
American  canal  at  Panama  did  not  exist  even  in 
embryo. 

The  prohibition  of  fighting,  within  gunshot  of 
the  line  of  transit,  had  always  been,  without  any 
exception,  the  principle  enforced  by  the  United 
States,  with  the  consent  and  sometimes  at  the 
request  of  Colombia.  It  was  a  formal  and  direct 


200      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

consequence  of  the  stipulations  of  the  treaty  of 
1846.  In  the  preceding  year,  1902,  the  same 
principle  had  been  reenforced  at  the  very  moment 
of  the  difficult  negotiations  with  M.  Concha,  for 
the  grant  of  the  Canal  concession  to  the  United 
States. 

In  September,  1902,  Commodore  MacLean  had 
forbidden  all  transportation  of  troops  on  the  rail- 
road. General  Quintero,  commander  of  the  Co- 
lombian troops,  and  General  Herrera,  commander 
of  the  Revolutionary  troops,  had  received  the 
same  notification.  It  was  at  a  moment  when  the 
greatest  care  had  to  be  observed  not  to  hurt  Co- 
lombian feelings. 

How  could  it  be  doubted  that  the  American 
forces  would  not  act  in  the  same  manner  one  year 
later,  at  a  time  when  Colombia  had  taken  a  de- 
cidedly hostile  attitude? 

No  hesitation  was  possible.  The  solution  had 
been  found!  The  mysterious  problem  was  solved! 
The  final  unknown  quantity  had  been  at  last 
discovered  and  I  had  resolved  the  equation,  as  the 
French  mathematicians  say,  in  the  most  elegant 
manner. 

It  was  no  longer  necessary  to  spend  enormous 
sums  for  a  useless  navy.  It  was  no  longer  neces- 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      201 

sary  to  present  the  impossible  request  for  protec- 
tion by  American  forces  outside  of  the  line  of 
transit.  Such  a  thing  was  indispensable  to  an 
insurrection  covering  the  whole  province  of 
Panama,  but  it  was  eliminated  entirely  if  the  in- 
surrection was  limited  to  the  Isthmus  proper. 

If  a  revolution  was  started  from  Colon  to 
Panama  the  American  forces  were  automatically, 
and  without  any  anterior  understanding,  obliged 
to  intervene.  Their  intervention  would  consist 
in  forbidding  any  armed  force  to  come  within 
gunshot  of  the  line  of  transit.  All  the  villages, 
all  the  houses,  all  the  inhabitants  within  that 
zone,  would  immediately  enjoy  all  necessary  pro- 
tection. 

Once  such  military  protection  was  secured,  the 
new  republic  could  wait. 

Would  it — or  would  it  not — be  immediately 
recognized?  To  this  question  no  answer  could 
be  given.  But  of  the  two  political  entities — the 
great  protecting  Power  and  the  small  protected 
Power — which  had  the  greater  interest  to  end 
such  a  ridiculous  situation?  It  was  evidently 
the  United  States,  and  furthermore  she  had  the 
greatest  interest  in  settling  the  Panama  Canal 
question. 


202      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

I   EXPLAIN   MY   NEW   SCHEME   TO   AMADOR 

The  more  I  thought  of  this  new  idea,  the  more 
simple,  clear,  decisive,  it  seemed  to  me.  I  had 
not  been  wrong  when  I  had  faith  in  the  eventual 
solution  of  a  problem  which  at  first  glance  seemed 
unsolvable. 

Before  completely  exposing  these  new  ideas  to 
Amador  I  thought  it  necessary  to  question  him 
again  as  to  the  means  of  carrying  out  the 
revolution.  As  all  the  information  which  he 
furnished  to  me  was  in  harmony  with  my  new 
conception,  I  disclosed  my  plan  to  him — on  the 
evening  of  Tuesday  the  13th  of  October. 

His  attitude  was  sullen.  Evidently  his  mind 
had  for  some  months  been  accustomed  to  brooding 
over  the  idea  of  a  contract  with  the  United  States 
such  as  novelists  imagine.  He  saw  himself  as- 
sociated with  the  President  and  the  Secretary  of 
State  of  the  powerful  Republic,  and  disposing  of 
her  millions  for  a  common  enterprise. 

In  spite  of  my  efforts  to  make  him  compre- 
hend the  truth,  he  was  certainly  persuaded  that 
such  a  plan  as  the  one  to  which  he  was  listening 
had  been  conceived  at  Washington,  in  the  White 
House,  and  not  in  my  own  mind  on  the  return 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      203 

journey  to  New  York.  A  special  circumstance 
certainly  confirmed  him  in  his  conviction. 

"You  say,"  he  interrupted,  in  a  tone  of  rebuke, 
"that  with  this  plan  there  is  no  more  need  of 
money;  but  it  will  still  be  absolutely  necessary. 
On  the  day  following  the  revolution  we  shall  have 
to  pay  the  arrears  to  the  troops." 

"I  admit  it,"  I  replied,  "but  $6,000,000  will  not 
be  necessary  for  that.  There  are  500  men.  Let  us 
put  $20 — $100  if  you  like — for  each  man.  This 
makes  $50,000." 

"It  is  not  enough,"  said  Amador. 

"Let  us  put  $100,000  if  you  like,"  was  my 
answer. 

He  was  obliged  to  admit  that  $100,000  would 
be  sufficient. 

"  Well,  Doctor,"  I  said, "  it  is  a  small  sum.  I  shall 
probably  be  able  to  borrow  it  of  a  New  York  bank." 

"What  if  you  don't  succeed?"  he  retorted. 

"Well,  I  shall  give  it  out  of  my  own  pocket," 
I  said.  "I  can  make  such  a  sacrifice  as  that,  but 
I  could  not  give  $6,000,000." 

Evidently  the  idea  that  I  could  risk  $100,000 
from  my  private  means,  to  save  the  Panama 
undertaking,  never  entered  the  mind  of  the  doctor. 
He  certainly  saw  there  the  shadow  of  one  of  those 


204       The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

mysterious  treasures  of  the  American  Secret  Funds 
which  exist  in  fiction  but  nowhere  else. 

"No,"  said  Amador,  finally,  "we  cannot  make 
the  movement  in  that  way.  We  all  of  us  at 
Panama  own  more  or  less  property  in  the  rest 
of  the  province.  The  idea  of  cutting  the  province 
in  two,  when  one  part  of  it  would  remain  to 
Colombia,  while  the  Isthmus  itself  would  be  an 
independent  republic,  is  unacceptable.  It  would 
discourage  everybody." 

"But  I  speak  only  of  the  first  period,"  I  re- 
torted. "Once  your  independence  is  assured, 
and  the  treaty  is  ratified,  you  will  have  $10,000,000 
with  which  you  can  wage  war  and  conquer  the  rest 
of  the  province." 

"No,"  he  replied,  "that  wouldn't  do." 

I  arose,  growing  impatient.  "Doctor  Amador," 
said  I,  "if  you  want  to  close  your  eyes,  you  will  see 
nothing.  You  came  on  the  23rd  of  September,  in 
despair,  to  -ask  me  for  support.  To-day,  October 
13th,  I  offer  it  you.  If  you  refuse  it,  well  and 
good.  I  have  nothing  more  to  say." 

We  separated,  coldly. 

On  the  following  day  I  was  awakened  early  in 
the  morning  by  two  discreet  knocks  at  the  door, 
which  I  opened.  It  was  Amador. 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      205 

He  was  pale  and  his  features  were  haggard. 

"Have  you  slept?"  he  asked,  by  way  of  greeting. 

"Very  well,"  I  answered.     "And  you?" 

"Not  one  second,"  he  replied,  taking  a  seat. 
"But  I  have  been  thinking,  and  I  have  discovered 
that  I  am  nothing  but  a  fool.  I  understand. 
Pardon  me.  I  shall  obey." 

"That  is  what  I  call  a  sensible  speech,"  I  said. 
"Well,  there  is  nothing  more  to  be  said,  as  you 
at  last  understand.  I  must  go  to-morrow,  Thurs- 
day, to  Washington,  for  the  inauguration  of  the 
Statue  of  General  Sherman.  I  am  invited  by  his 
niece,  Mrs.  Sherman  MacCallum.  I  will  perhaps 
find  how  to  complete  the  cycle  of  my  information. 
Prepare  yourself  to  leave  by  the  next  boat,  Tues- 
day, October  20th,  for  the  Isthmus.  On  my  re- 
turn from  Washington  I  will  give  you  a  precise 
programme  of  action.  Now  leave  me,  so  that  I 
can  prepare  it  at  leisure." 

I  wanted  to  be  free  from  his  presence  to  prepare 
a  rational  and  mature  plan,  which  I  did  not  want 
to  leave  him  the  time  to  discuss  in  detail. 

MY  MEETING  WITH  MR.  HAY,   SECRETARY  OF  STATE 

I  intended,  in  going  to  Washington,  not  only  to 
have  time  for  quiet  thought,  but  also  to  find 


206      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

an  opportunity  of  becoming  acquainted  with  Mr. 
Hay.  I  had  met  this  eminent  man  once  only,  at 
the  house  of  Mr.  Bigelow,  but  I  had  not  had  the 
chance  of  speaking  to  him. 

The  opportunity  arrived.  I  had  gone  to  call 
on  Mr.  Loomis,  in  the  State  Department.  Mr. 
Hay,  whose  office  was  next  to  Mr.  Loomis's,  en- 
tered to  ask  for  some  information.  Mr.  Loomis 
introduced  me.  Mr.  Hay,  with  much  courtesy, 
once  the  first  greetings  had  been  exchanged,  in- 
vited me  to  his  own  office. 

The  subject  of  our  conversation  was,  at  first, 
our  common  friendship  for  Mr.  John  Bigelow. 
Our  talk  had  scarcely  begun  when  the  usher 
entered  and  gave  a  card  to  the  Secretary  of  State. 
I  noticed  a  certain  embarrassment  on  his  features. 
I  intervened: 

"Mr.  Secretary  of  State,  I  should  be  sorry  if 
my  unexpected  presence  were  to  interrupt  your 
audiences.  Please  let  me  withdraw,  and  we  will 
find  a  more  convenient  time  to  continue  this  con- 
versation." 

"I  am,  indeed,  very  embarrassed,"  answered 
Mr.  Hay;  "I  want-  to  talk  with  you  on  a  subject 
which  is  giving  me  grave  preoccupation:  Panama. 
You  certainly  are  better  informed  than  ourselves. 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      207 

On  the  other  hand,  I  have  to-day  to  receive  the 
i  ambassadors,  and  it  is  difficult  not  to  fulfil  this 
1  other  duty.  It  will  take  about  one  hour." 

"It  does  not  matter,"  I  said,  "I  shall  withdraw, 
i  and  it  will  give  me  great  pleasure  to  come  back 
when  your  receptions  are  over." 

"Well,  since  you  allow  me,"  replied  Mr.  Hay, 
"let  me  send  you  word  to  fix  an  appointment,  so 
that  we  may  converse  without  fear  of  interrup- 
tion." 

Soon  after  I  had  reached  my  hotel  a  card  from 
Mr.  Hay  was  handed  to  me.  He  invited  me  to 
go  and  see  him — not  at  the  State  Department  but 
at  his  own  house  at  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon. 

Such  were  the  circumstances  which  permitted 
me  to  become  acquainted  for  the  first  time  with 
this  many-sided  and  extremely  able  man. 

I  had  always  imagined  him  as  severe  and  cold, 
a  sort  of  "Iron  Chancellor"  of  America.  It  was 
the  impression  given  by  his  photographs  and 
policy.  How  different  he  was  when  he  had  doffed 
his  outside  armour! 

The  constant  desire  of  this  delicate  and  refined 
mind  was  to  obtain  by  political  action  the  im- 
provement of  the  moral  and  physical  condition 
of  man.  He  considered  the  United  States  as 


208      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

consecrated    above   all   to   this   great   task.    In  ] 
serving  his  country,  as  he  did,  with  all  the  energy 
of  his  heart  and  mind,  I  doubt  if  he  ever  dis- 
sociated in  his  thoughts  her  interests  from  those  of 
humanity. 

He  saw,  in  the  opening  of  the  Panama  Canal, 
the  greatest  service  which  could  be  rendered  to 
the  human  family.  As  his  ideas  coincided  rigor- 
ously with  my  own  on  this  subject  a  strong  and 
reciprocal  sympathy  was  soon  established  between 
us. 

Together  we  deplored  the  blindness  of  Colombia. 
I  told  him  what  efforts  I  had  made  to  show  her  the 
truth  and  how  they  had  been  baffled. 

"When  all  the  counsels  of  Prudence  and  Friend- 
ship have  been  made  in  vain,"  I  said,  "there  comes 
a  moment  when  one  has  to  stand  still  and  await 
events." 

"These  events,"  he  asked,  "what  do  you  think 
they  will  be?" 

"  I  expressed  my  sentiments  on  the  subject  some 
days  ago  to  President  Roosevelt,"  I  replied;  "the 
whole  thing  will  end  in  a  revolution.  You  must 
take  your  measures,  if  you  do  not  want  to  be 
taken  yourself  by  surprise." 

"Yes,"  said  Mr.  Hay,  "that  is  unfortunately 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      209 

the  most  probable  hypothesis.  But  we  shall  not 
je  caught  napping.  Orders  have  been  given  to 
naval  forces  on  the  Pacific  to  sail  toward  the  Isth- 


mus." 


THE  "CAPTAIN  MACKLIN":  SYMBOL  OR  PASSWORD? 

Our  conversation  then  took  a  more  general  turn; 
we  spoke  of  the  facility  with  which  in  these  coun- 
tries political  discontent  takes  a  violent  form. 

"I  have  just  finished  reading,"  said  Mr.  Hay, 
"  a  charming  novel,  '  Captain  Macklin.'  It  is  the 
history  of  a  West  Point  cadet  who  leaves  the  mili- 
tary academy  to  become  a  soldier  of  fortune  in 
Central  America.  He  enlists  under  the  orders  of 
a  general,  a  former  officer  of  the  French  army,  who 
commands  a  revolutionary  army  in  Honduras. 
The  young,  ambitious  American,  and  the  old 
French  officer — who  as  head  of  the  army  displays 
in  all  his  acts  the  generous  disinterestedness  of  his 
race — are  both  charming  types  of  searchers  after 
the  Ideal.  Read  this  volume,  take  it  with  you," 
concluded  Mr.  Hay,  "it  will  interest  you,"  and  he 
handed  it  to  me. 

I  carried  away  with  me  from  this  interview  an 
emotion,  the  recollection  of  which  will  never  be 
erased  from  my  heart.  I  felt  I  had  had  the  privi- 


210      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

lege  of  approaching  one  of  the  most  noble  charac- 
ters it  has  ever  been  given  me  to  know.  The 
course  of  events  was  only  to  engrave  this  first 
impression  more  deeply  on  my  mind.  I  have 
never  ceased  to  have  for  the  character  of  Mr. 
Hay  an  almost  religious  admiration. 

I  read  "Captain  Macklin"  with  an  interest 
which  may  be  easily  understood.  The  chivalrous 
figure  of  the  old  French  warrior,  who  is  the  hero 
of  the  history,  corresponded  perfectly  to  the  de- 
scription given  by  Mr.  Hay.  At  the  head  of  his 
half-wild  army,  in  the  virgin  forest,  he  pursued 
undeviatingly  the  high  aim  of  justice  and  progress. 
I  could  not  help  thinking  that  Mr.  Hay,  in  giving 
me  this  volume,  had  meant  to  make  a  subtle  allu- 
sion to  my  own  efforts  in  the  cause  of  justice  and 
progress. 

Perhaps  he  wished  to  go  even  further?  Did  he 
not  intend  thus  to  make  me  understand  that  he 
had  the  presentiment  of  the  personal  part  I  was 
playing,  and  which  I  had  not  revealed  to  him? 
Did  he  not  wish  to  tell  me  symbolically  that  he 
had  understood  that  the  revolution  in  preparation 
for  the  victory  of  the  Idea  was  taking  shape  under 
my  direction? 

Never  did  I  undertake  to  clear  up  this  delicate 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

mystery,  but  I  always  acted  as  if  "  Captain  Mack- 
lin"  had  been  the  subtle  symbol,  the  password, 
exchanged  between  Mr.  Hay  and  myself.  This 
password  explained  that  which  concern  for  our 
honour  prevented  us  both  from  expressing  verbally. 

NOTWITHSTANDING  MR.  HAY*S  SILENCE,  I  KNEW  ALL 

The  interview  with  Mr.  Hay  would  have  re- 
moved my  last  hesitations  if  hesitation  had  been 
any  longer  possible. 

The  Secretary  of  State  had  not  feared  to  say 
that  Washington  expected  a  revolution  in  Panama, 
and  that  the  United  States  had  taken  military 
precautions.  They  were  probably  the  consequence 
of  the  formal  assertion  of  opinion  I  had  made  to 
President  Roosevelt,  an  assertion  which  the  rum- 
ours current  in  the  press  entirely  corroborated. 

It  only  remained  for  me  to  act.  The  United 
States  would  have  a  sufficient  military  force  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  the  Canal  if  the  revolution 
broke  out.  I  felt  no  doubt  as  to  the  only  question 
which  could  burden  my  conscience:  the  security 
of  the  men  who  were  to  risk  their  lives  on  my  word. 

What  would  be  the  destiny  of  the  new  republic? 
There  was  but  little  interest  in  trying  to  determine 
that  in  advance.  This  chapter  could  be  left  to 


212      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

the  eventualities  of  the  future.  As  soon  as  I  had 
become  thoroughly  convinced  by  a  succession  of 
repeated  proofs,  that  my  friends  would  be  pro- 
tected against  the  crushing  load  of  the  Colombian 
forces,  my  mind  was  free  to  prepare  the  events. 

As  soon  as  I  left  Mr.  Hay's  house  I  hastened  to 
take  the  first  train  for  New  York. 

When  passing  through  Baltimore  at  7:50  in  the 
evening  I  sent  a  telegram  to  Amador  saying  that 
Jones  expected  him  on  the  following  morning  at 
9:30. 

I  GIVE   AMADOR   FULL  INSTRUCTIONS 

At  the  stated  hour  Doctor  Amador  knocked  at 
the  door  of  room  No.  1162  of  the  Waldorf-Astoria 
Hotel. 

During  my  sojourn  hi  Washington  I  had  medi- 
tated over  the  precise  plan  of  action,  and  I  had 
written  the  necessary  documents.  As  I  was  well 
acquainted  with  the  hesitating  temperament  of 
Spanish-Americans,  I  had  made  it  a  point  to  have 
ready  for  Amador,  before  the  day  of  sailing,  all 
that  he  needed  for  immediate  action.  I  had  pre- 
pared the  Proclamation  of  Independence;  a  me- 
thodical plan  of  the  military  operations,  including 
arrangements  for  the  defence  of  the  Isthmus  to  be 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      213 

effected  within  the  three  first  days;  and,  finally, 
a  cipher  code  allowing  Amador  and  myself  to 
correspond  secretly. 

The  Constitution  of  Cuba,  which  had  just  been 
drawn  up  by  men  of  high  legal  talent,  was  to  be 
the  model  for  the  Panama  Constitution.  It  only 
remained  to  design  the  flag  of  the  new  republic. 

I  had  realized  during  my  journey  back  from 
Washington  that  nobody  was  better  fitted  than  I 
rapidly  to  conduct  the  diplomatic  negotiations,  as 
no  one  knew  better  the  ground  at  once  in  Wash- 
ington, Panama,  and  Bogota.  I  had  for  several 
years  thoroughly  studied  the  situation  in  Washing- 
ton. I  had  secured  there  important  posts  of  ob- 
servation which  could  easily  be  turned  into  centres 
of  diplomatic  action. 

"Doctor  Amador,"  said  I,  when  he  entered  my 
room,  "the  moment  has  come  to  clear  the  deck 
for  action.  Be  satisfied  with  my  assertions. 
There  is  no  more  time  for  discussing  their  genesis. 

"I  can  give  you  the  assurance  that  you  will  be 
protected  by  the  American  forces  forty-eight  hours 
after  you  have  proclaimed  the  new  Republic 
in  the  whole  Isthmus. 

"Then  will  begin  a  delicate  period,  that  of  the 
complete  recognition  of  the  new  Republic.  The 


214      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

fight  will  be  in  Washington;  I  assume  responsibility 
for  it.  I  take  also  the  responsibility  of  obtaining 
for  you,  from  a  bank — or  of  myself  furnishing  you 
— the  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  which  are 
necessary  to  you.  But  my  political  and  financial 
cooperation  will  begin  only  after  you  have  com- 
pleted what  is  incumbent  upon  you:  the  conquest 
of  your  liberty.  This  is  your  own  work.  If  you 
do  not  feel  yourself  capable  of  establishing,  with- 
out external  aid,  a  new  government  in  the  Isthmus 
proper,  remain  quiet  and  do  nothing.  If  you 
believe  yourself  capable,  follow  your  free  judg- 
ment. When  you  have  done  your  work,  when 
you  have  conquered  and  acquired  your  liberty, 
then  will  begin  my  part;  I  shall  work  for  you  and 
with  you,  so  that  liberty  may  be  preserved  to  you. 

"In  order  to  make  everything  quite  clear  I  have 
prepared  a  series  of  documents  which  I  shall  give 
you  as  suggestions.  You  will  do  with  them  what- 
ever you  deem  wise.  They  are  the  programme  of 
military  operations,  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence, a  base  for  the  Constitution  of  the  new  Re- 
public, and  finally  a  code  with  which  to  correspond 
with  me. 

"I  repeat,  my  official  connections  with  this 
affair  cannot,  and  must  not,  begin  until  you  have 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      215 

broken  your  chains  unaided  and  by  your  own 
hands. 

"From  that  moment  on,  if  ever  the  moment 
comes,  a  most  important  part  will  have  to  be 
played;  it  will  consist  in  ensuring  the  permanence 
of  the  life  of  the  entity  you  will  have  created,  and 
its  entrance  into  the  family  of  nations.  This  part 
I  sincerely  believe  nobody  is  better  fitted  to  play 
than  myself.  I  venture  to  say  this,  because  no- 
body knows  better  than  I  the  final  aim,  which  is 
the  completion  of  the  Canal  and  the  best  way  to 
attain  it.  It  will,  therefore,  be  necessary  to  en- 
trust me  with  the  diplomatic  representation  of  the 
new  Republic  at  Washington." 

Doctor  Amador  had  been  listening  to  my  expose 
with  a  glow  of  enthusiasm  in  his  eyes.  The  flame 
suddenly  died  out  when  I  touched  upon  the  ques- 
tion of  diplomatic  representation.  This  sudden 
change  revealed  to  me  that  he  had  thought  of 
some  other  person  for  filling  this  important  post. 

He  tried — hesitatingly — to  raise  objections!  The 
amour-propre  of  the  Isthmians,  he  said,  would  be 
hurt  by  the  choice  of  a  foreigner  for  their  first 
representative  abroad. 

"I  can  easily  see  that,"  I  answered,  "but  a 
supreme  law  must  dictate  our  resolutions.  It 


216      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

commands  us  to  assemble  every  element  that  may 
help  to  ensure  final  success.  A  battle  royal  will 
be  fought  at  Washington;  let  him  wage  it  who  is 
best  equipped  to  win  the  victory." 

"But  could  not  a  Panaman  be  appointed  whose 
obedience  I  would  guarantee?"  asked  Amador. 
"You  would  dictate  his  acts  and  his  words." 

"No,  my  dear  Doctor,"  I  replied,  "a  solution 
of  that  order  is  of  no  value  when  on  one  word, 
on  a  single  act,  on  a  single  minute,  may  depend  the 
success  or  the  reverse.  Absolute  liberty  of  deci- 
sion and  of  action  must  be  provided  for  him  who 
commands.  But  this  is  only  my  advice.  If  it  is 
not  acceptable  to  you,  to  your  friends,  follow  your 
personal  inclinations.  In  such  a  case,  you  may 
still  count  on  me  to  do  everything  within  my  power 
to  help  you,  but  at  the  same  time  I  must  tell  you 
that  I  will  not  accept  any  responsibility,  if  you  do 
not  follow  the  line  ensuring  the  maximum  quantity 
of  favourable  chances." 

Amador  had  listened  to  me  with  a  distressed 
air.  "Well,"  he  said,  "I  will  try  to  carry  your 
point." 

"Nothing  remains,"  I  added,  "but  to  make  the 
model  of  the  flag.  I  am  going  to-morrow  to  join 
my  family  at  Highland  Falls  on  the  Hudson,  at 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      217 

the  Bigelows',  and  I  shall  find  there  the  agile  and 
discreet  fingers  that  will  make  the  new  flag." 

We  separated.  I  hastened  to  go  and  buy  at  the 
nearest  shop  the  silk  necessary  for  making  the  new 
Standard  of  this  Republic,  whose  birth  was  to  be 
the  signal  of  the  resurrection  of  the  slaughtered 
enterprise,  and  later  on  the  prime  cause  of  the 
deadly  defeat  of  its  murderer. 

I  spent  the  rest  of  the  day  correcting  and  revising 
the  documents  I  had  prepared  for  Doctor  Amador. 

He  came  back  in  the  afternoon,  still  preoccupied 
by  the  question  of  the  plenipotentiary  at  Washing- 
ton. Evidently  his  mind  could  not  adapt  itself 
to  the  argument  I  had  developed.  He  was  power- 
less to  dispute  its  forcible  logic,  but  he  could  not 
overcome  the  pressure  of  the  secret  ambition  of 
himself  being  this  plenipotentiary. 

I  inexorably  maintained  the  necessary  line  of  ac- 
tion. I  could  not  admit  that  personal  interest  should 
interfere  to  lessen  in  any  degree,  however  small,  the 
chances  of  success  of  this  difficult  enterprise 

THE    FLAG    MADE   BY    MME.    BUNAU-VARILLA 

I  left  on  the  following  day,  Sunday,  early  in  the 
morning,  for  Highland  Falls  on  the  Hudson,  to 


£18      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

join  my  wife  and  children,  who  were  enjoying  there 
the  delightful  hospitality  of  the  Bigelow  family. 

Mme.  Bunau-Varilla  remained  in  her  rooms 
in  the  greatest  secrecy  the  whole  day  making  the 
flag  of  liberation.  Besides  my  wife,  I  took  as  a 
confidant  my  son,  Etienne,  then  thirteen  years 
old,  in  whose  mind  I  desired  to  leave  a  trace  of 
these  dramatic  moments. 

It  only  remained  to  have  a  copy  of  all  the 
documents  made  by  a  typist.  A  young  woman 
totally  ignorant  of  Spanish,  and  who  acted  in 
the  capacity  of  secretary  in  the  Bigelow  family, 
came  to  New  York  for  the  purpose.  She  executed 
the  work  far  from  indiscreet  eyes,  in  the  then 
empty  residence  of  the  Bigelows  at  Gramercy 
Park. 

On  Monday,  when  I  came  back,  I  soon  managed 
to  get  everything  ready.  Amador  came  to  admire 
the  flag,  which  he  found  perfect.  Its  design  was 
the  same  as  that  of  the  American  flag  with  these 
exceptions:  for  the  white  was  substituted  the 
yellow  which  characterizes  the  Spanish  and  Co- 
lombian flags,  and  instead  of  white  stars  distrib- 
uted over  the  blue  jack  were  placed  two  yellow 
suns  united  by  a  band  of  the  same  colour.  These 
suns  represented  the  two  continents  as  the  stars 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      219 

in  the  American  flag  represent  the  states  of  the 
Union. 

I  knew  that  this  flag  would  be  modified;  and  it 
was.  But  in  Central  America  people  are  much 
quicker  at  modifying  than  at  creating,  and  not  a 
moment  had  to  be  lost  after  Amador's  arrival 
on  the  Isthmus. 

After  having  taken  cognizance  of  both  letter  and 
spirit  of  the  instructions  that  I  had  handed  him, 
Amador  said:  "Fifteen  days  will  be  necessary 
after  my  arrival  in  order  to  carry  out  the  move- 
ment." 

"What!"  I  exclaimed;  "fifteen  days?  It  would 
be  much  simpler  to  say  right  away  you  are  going 
to  abandon  everything.  You  leave  to-morrow, 
the  20th  of  October;  you  arrive  on  the  27th. 
Within  two  days  you  could  act." 

"Yes — if  I  were  alone,"  he  replied;  "but  do 
you  not  know  our  friends?  Conference  after  con- 
ference will  be  necessary!" 

"That  is  true,"  I  interrupted;  "but  what  is  still 
more  true  is  that  Colombia  has  massed  troops  at 
Carthagena  with  General  Tovar,  who  at  any 
moment  may  disembark  on  the  Isthmus.  What 
is  possible  to-day  may  be  impossible  to-morrow. 
You  must  act  as  soon  as  you  arrive.  Success  will 


220      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

be  the  reward  of  rapidity  and  decision,  as  is  al- 
ways the  case. 

"Well,"  I  said  in  conclusion,  "I  give  you  up 
to  the  3rd  of  November  as  a  final  limit  for  action. 
If  you  have  not  accomplished  the  revolution  on 
that  day,  or  before,  I  shall  consider  myself  free 
of  all  responsibility  for  further  events." 

"Give  me  at  least  till  the  5th  of  November," 
implored  Amador. 

"No,"  I  replied;  "if  you  are  not  capable  of  doing 
within  seven  days  what  you  declare  yourself  to 
be  ready  to  do  immediately,  you  demonstrate 
yourself  incapable  of  winning  your  liberty,  and 
you  had  better  stay  where  you  are  and  what  you 


are." 


Amador  left  me,  saying  he  would  be  back  on 
the  day  following  at  nine  in  the  morning.  He  was 
to  stop  on  his  way  to  the  wharf  in  order  to  take 
with  him  what  I  had  prepared  for  the  liberation 
of  his  country. 

Before  his  return  I  prepared  the  cablegram  that 
he  was  to  send  me  in  clear  language,  once  the  Re- 
public was  proclaimed.  It  was  the  summing  up 
of  our  conditions,  and  drew  the  line  definitely 
where  Amador 's  action  finished  and  mine  began. 
It  was  conceived  in  these  terms: 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

The  Government  has  just  been  formed  by  popular 
acclamation.  Its  authority  extends  from  Colon  in- 
clusive to  Panama  inclusive.  I  request  you  to  accept 
the  mission  of  Minister  Plenipotentiary  in  order  to 
obtain  the  recognition  of  the  Republic  and  signature 
of  Canal  Treaty.  You  have  full  powers  to  appoint  a 
banker  for  the  Republic  at  New  York,  and  to  open 
credit  for  immediate  urgent  expenses. 


I  gave  the  text  to  Amador  with  these  words : 

"So  long  as  you  are  unable  to  send  me  this  tele- 
gram, no  responsibility  is  incumbent  upon  me. 
From  the  moment  I  receive  this  telegram  my  re- 
sponsibility will  begin.  It  will  then  be  my  duty 
immediately  to  send  you  one  hundred  thousand 
dollars  and  within  forty-eight  hours  to  see  that 
protection  is  extended  to  you.  The  only  dangerous 
period  for  you  will  be  from  the  moment  the  revolu- 
tion begins  to  forty -eight  hours  after  the  telegram 
is  handed  to  me." 

Amador  left  me  to  embark,  after  solemnly 
affirming  his  complete  agreement  with  me  as  to 
the  conditions  thus  stipulated. 

It  was  at  this  moment  9:30  A.  M.,  Tuesday, 
October  20th,  that  the  period  of  action  began. 

Some  minutes  later  he  reopened  the  door. 
"One  word  more,"  he  said.  "What  must  I  do 


222      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

about  Obaldia?  He  is  now  Governor  of  Panama. 
His  sympathies  are  certainly  with  us.  Must  I 
disclose  everything  to  him?  Consider  my  situa- 
tion if  I  say  nothing  to  him.  He  is  my  lifelong 
friend;  he  is  my  guest  at  this  moment;  he  eats 
at  my  table.  I  am  in  great  perplexity." 

"Do  not  take  him  for  a  confidant,"  I  replied. 
"Do  not  place  Obaldia  between  his  sympathies 
and  his  honour." 

Amador  closed  the  door  and  left  for  the  steamer. 

I   TAKE   MEASURES   TO   PROVIDE   $100,000 

I  soon  felt  relieved  from  the  tension  of  mind 
caused  by  the  preparation  of  my  instructions  to  the 
emissary  in  charge  of  this  formidable  enterprise. 

I  had  now  to  think  of  placing  myself  in  a  con- 
dition to  keep  my  promise  with  regard  to  the  re- 
sources needed  for  the  first  days  of  the  new  Re- 
public. I  had  seven  days  ahead  of  me. 

My  first  idea  had  been  to  disclose  the  situation 
to  Mr.  Pierpont  Morgan  or  to  Mr.  Isaac  Seligman, 
with  whom  I  was  in  personal  relations.  I  had 
written  to  both  of  these  gentlemen  to  ask  for  an 
appointment  without  saying  for  what  purpose. 

When  the  moment  arrived  I  saw  obstacles  which 
I  had  not  at  first  perceived.  Was  it  likely  that  the 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

representatives  of  such  huge  interests  would  run 
the  risk  of  engaging  in  so  dangerous  an  adventure? 
If  the  revolution  was  to  fail  the  moral  responsibil- 
ity would  be  enormous  for  them.  If  it  succeeded 
the  profit  would  be  insignificant.  Would  any 
banker  ever  be  tempted  where  the  alternatives 
were  of  such  a  nature? 

An  operation  of  that  class  could  be  acceptable 
only  to  a  second-rate  bank.  But  in  such  a  case  a 
commission  would  be  demanded  from  the  new 
Republic  which  would  be  in  proportion  to  the  risk, 
that  is  to  say,  very  great.  It  would,  later  on, 
be  considered  as  extortionate  and  usurious.  On 
the  other  hand,  in  such  a  case,  what  could  prevent 
the  bank  from  making  an  easy  speculation  in 
Panama  securities? 

A  revolutionary  movement  ending  successfully 
would  necessarily  about  treble  the  quotation  in 
these  securities.  What  would  appear  to  me  a  con- 
temptible speculation  could  not  fail  to  be  con- 
sidered by  a  second-class  banker  as  absolutely 
legitimate.  And  besides,  if  I  raised  the  question 
of  this  eventual  loan,  I  must  necessarily  disclose 
the  secret  plan.  Who  could  guarantee  that  the 
secret  would  be  kept?  Who  could  guarantee  that 
on  the  same  evening  a  telegram  would  not  be  sent 


224      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

to  Bogota,  and  that  Colombian  troops  would  not 
be  hurried  to  the  Isthmus  and  land  at  the  same 
time  as  Amador? 

All  these  considerations  made  it  absolutely  im- 
practicable to  contract  a  loan  with  third  parties 
in  the  name  of  the  new  Republic. 

I  was  bound  by  honour.  I  had  no  other  alterna- 
tive but  to  provide  the  funds  from  my  personal 
means,  and  to  run  the  risk  myself  of  losing  this 
important  sum.  It  was  the  only  way  to  be  as- 
sured that  no  indiscretion  would  be  committed 
and  no  speculation  attempted. 

My  resolution  was  made  on  the  evening  of 
Wednesday,  the  21st  of  October.  At  1  A.  M.  on 
the  22nd  I  cabled  to  two  banks  in  Europe  which 
held  securities  for  me,  asking  each  of  them  to  loan 
me  fifty  thousand  dollars.  I  requested  them,  in 
case  they  should  agree  to  my  request,  to  remit 
this  sum  immediately  to  the  branch  office  "B" 
of  the  Credit  Lyonnais.  This  branch  office  was 
accustomed  to  make  cable  transfers  for  me  during 
my  sojourns  in  America,  when  I  needed  money 
for  travelling  expenses. 

One  cannot  but  admire  the  extraordinary  elas- 
ticity of  the  financial  mechanism  of  our  days.  I 
delivered  my  two  cablegrams  at  the  telegraph 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

office  on  Thursday  at  1  A.  M.,  going  to  bed  im- 
mediately afterward.  I  was  awakened  at  8  o'clock 
by  a  servant,  who  brought  the  first  answer.  At 
11  o'clock  the  second  one  arrived.  All  was  set- 
tled. The  hundred  thousand  dollars  had  been 
sent  to  the  branch  office  "B",  where  I  could  dis- 
pose of  them  at  will.  I  had  but  to  give  the  order 
for  transferring  them  by  cable  to  New  York,  which 
order  was  given  the  Sunday  following.  Before 
Amador  arrived  on  the  Isthmus  I  had  at  my  dis- 
posal in  New  York  one  hundred  thousand  dollars 
at  the  bank  Heidelbach,  Ickelheimer  &  Co.  I  was 
ready. 

This  question  once  settled,  and  everything, 
therefore,  being  accomplished  by  Thursday  morn- 
ing, the  22nd  of  October,  I  had  nothing  more  to 
do  but  await  events. 

THE  COLOMBIAN  GENERAL  PROVIDENTIALLY  LATE 

I  need  not  say  with  what  anxiety  every  morning 
and  evening  I  opened  the  newspapers.  The  fate 
of  the  Panama  Canal  depended  upon  the  move- 
ments of  the  Colombian  troops  concentrated  at 
Carthagena. 

On  the  26th  of  October  I  read  in  a  newspaper 
with  indescribable  joy  the  following  lines: 


226      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

Barranquilla  [a  Colombian  port  on  the  Atlantic, 
close  to  Carthagena]  announces  that  General  Tovar 
who  was  expected  to  leave  soon  [for  the  Isthmus]  may 
not  do  so  before  the  beginning  of  November.  He  has 
received  the  order  to  make  a  report  on  the  condition 
of  the  artillery  of  the  forts  at  Barranquilla,  Puerto, 
Colombia,  Carthagena,  and  the  harbours  of  the  Atlantic. 

On  the  other  hand,  on  the  previous  day,  October 
25th,  the  New  York  Sun  had  published  a  telegram 
from  Philadelphia,  which  had  for  me  an  extreme 
significance.  It  announced  that  the  cruiser  Dixie 
had  sailed  with  sealed  orders,  taking  with  her 
400  marines. 

Three  days  later  the  papers  printed  a  despatch 
from  Washington  which  was  published  among 
others  in  the  New  York  Times  on  the  28th  of 
October,  announcing  that  the  Dixie  was  to  arrive 
at  Guantanamo,  Cuba.  The  despatch  added 
that,  in  case  of  a  revolution  in  the  Isthmus,  the 
Dixie  would  be  sent  to  Colon. 

Another  paper  said  that  the  marines  would  be 
landed  on  the  Isthmus  to  maintain  order  along 
the  line  of  inter-oceanic  communication.  The 
same  despatch  announced  that  another  cruiser, 
the  Nashville,  was  at  Kingston,  Jamaica. 

Evidently  the  movements  of  Amador  had  been 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

watched,  and  his  departure  for  the  Isthmus  after 
his  conference  with  me  had  raised  suspicions  of  an 
early  explosion  of  the  revolution  after  the  Colom- 
bian Congress  had  closed  its  session. 

The  sending  of  the  Dixie  to  Guantanamo  showed 
the  preoccupation  of  the  American  Government. 
It  did  not  disguise  this  preoccupation  in  its  com- 
munication to  the  press.  Does  not  this  simple 
fact  in  itself  give  the  lie  to  the  absurd  and  prej- 
udiced story  of  a  revolution  organized  by  the 
United  States  Government? 

At  Washington  they  had  probably  associated 
in  their  minds  the  departure  of  Amador  and  the 
prediction  I  had  formulated  in  my  interview  with 
President  Roosevelt  on  the  9th  of  October  and 
with  Mr.  Hay  on  the  16th  as  to  the  imminent  peril 
of  a  revolution.  The  conclusion  which  must  have 
been  reached  was  that  the  departure  of  Amador 
after  his  interviews  with  me  was  the  beginning 
of  revolutionary  operations. 

Mr.  Hay  had  remembered  my  warning  as  to 
the  danger  of  the  United  States  being  caught  un- 
aware by  a  sudden  revolution.  He  had  certainly 
issued  the  orders  to  have  troops  ready  as  soon  as 
Amador  had  left.  The  Nashville  was  mounting 
guard  at  Kingston  for  the  obvious  purpose  of  fly- 


228      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

ing  to  the  Isthmus  at  first  call.  The  intentions 
of  the  American  Government  were  luminously 
shown  by  the  whole  set  of  facts. 

Thus  were  rigorously  confirmed  all  my  anterior 
inductions. 

Positively  everything  was  working  out  with 
admirable  precision  and  in  accordance  with  my 
logical  reasoning.  Amador  had  nothing  more  to 
do  but  to  set  fire  to  the  fuse  before  the  arrival  of 
the  Colombian  troops,  and  Panama  was  saved. 
To  be  still  more  certain  I  went  to  spend  the  27th 
at  Washington.  I  heard  nothing  to  give  me  a 
fresh  indication.  It  was  the  very  day  that  Ama- 
dor was  landing  at  Colon. 

AMADOU'S   CRYPTIC  TELEGRAM:   i   INTERPRET   IT 

On  the  27th  and  28th  of  October  Amador  gave 
no  sign.  There  was  nothing  astonishing  in  that. 
I  expected  the  great  news  on  the  29th.  Instead 
of  receiving  it,  the  following  cablegram  was  handed 
to  me  at  9.45  in  the  morning: 

TOWER,  New  York — Fate  news  bad  powerful  tiger. 
Urge  vapor  Colon. — SMITH. 

The  address,  "Tower,  New  York,*'  was  that  of 
M.  Lindo,  the  friend  of  Amador,  who  had  sent 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      229 

him  to  me  to  ask  for  my  support  as  soon  as  I 
arrived  in  September. 

He  had  undertaken  to  transmit  the  telegraphic 
secret  correspondence  between  Amador  and  my- 
self. But  he  was  ignorant  of  their  contents,  which 
only  the  conventional  code  I  had  given  to  Amador 
could  explain.  In  that  way  the  despatches  could 
pass  without  attracting  the  attention  of  the  Colom- 
bian authorities.  I  deciphered  with  stupefaction 
the  first  words: 

Fate. — This  cable  is  for  M.  Bunau-Varilla. 
News. — Colombian  troops  arriving. 
Bad. — Atlantic. 
Powerful. — Five  days. 
Tiger.— More  than  200. 

None  of  the  words  which  followed  in  the  des- 
patch— Urge  vapor  Colon — was  in  the  code.  It 
was  therefore  necessary  to  take  their  meaning  in 
Spanish.  It  was:  "Press  steamer  Colon." 
The  signature  "Smith"  meant  "Amador." 
The  beginning  of  the  despatch  was  perfectly 
clear.  Amador  announced  the  arrival  within 
five  days — that  is  on  the  2nd  or  3rd  of  November 
— of  200  Colombian  soldiers  on  the  Atlantic  side. 
But  what  was  the  signification  of  the  rest:  "Press 
steamer  Colon"?  Nothing  in  my  instructions  to 


230      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

Amador  could  explain  the  mystery.  The  fact  that 
these  words  were  in  plain  language  established  that 
they  did  not  refer  to  anything  previously  agreed. 

Suddenly  light  dawned  in  my  mind.  I  saw 
clearly  the  scene  which  had  given  birth  to  this 
curious  and  inexplicable  message. 

Amador  had  left  the  Isthmus  when  everybody 
was  under  the  sway  of  the  illusions  created  by  the 
foolish  and  unrealizable  promises  which  the  first 
delegates  of  the  insurgents  had  said  had  been  made 
to  him  in  New  York.  He  and  his  friends  were 
firmly  convinced  that  he  was  going  to  be  intro- 
duced to  the  Secretary  of  State,  and  that  he  was 
going  to  sign  with  him  a  regular  convention. 
Everybody  expected  Amador  to  bring  a  veritable 
treaty  vouching  for  the  support  of  the  American 
forces  and  the  payment  of  six  million  dollars. 

This  fairy  tale,  like  all  prolonged  chimeras, 
must  have  been  gradually  transformed  into  a  firm 
belief.  Instead  of  bringing  this  treaty,  Amador 
returned  with  only  the  verbal  assertion  of  a 
private  individual. 

To  be  sure  every  one  of  Amador's  associates  had 
known  that  person  for  a  long  time.  To  be  sure 
they  had  complete  faith  in  his  word.  But  between 
believing  in  somebody's  word  and  risking  one's 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      231 

life  because  of  such  belief  there  is  an  enormous 
difference. 

To  overcome  their  resistance,  Amador  must  have 
assured  them  that  I  was  the  spokesman  of  the 
American  Government.  Probably  he  had  even  per- 
suaded himself  of  that  nonsense.  Had  he  not  said 
to  me  with  a  mysterious  air:  "Who  has  suggested 
this  to  you?"  on  the  day  following  my  disclosure 
to  him  of  my  scheme  of  a  Republic  limited  to  the 
Isthmus  proper? 

When,  therefore,  he  tried  to  persuade  the  re- 
luctant confederates,  one  of  them  must  have  risen 
and  said:  "If  Bunau-Varilla  is  so  powerful  let 
him  prove  it.  He  says  we  shall  be  protected 
forty-eight  hours  after  establishing  the  new  Re- 
public. Well,  we  will  believe  him,  if  he  is  capable 
of  sending  an  American  man-of  war  to  Colon  at 
our  request." 

This  obviously  was  the  interpretation  of  an 
otherwise  incomprehensible  cablegram.  The  more 
I  considered  the  solution  the  more  certain  I  felt 
that  it  was  the  right  one.  It  was  not  information 
which  was  transmitted  to  me,  it  was  a  test  to 
which  I  was  being  submitted. 

I  knew  later  on  through  M.  Carlos  Arosemena — 
one  of  the  confederates  who  afterward  became  my 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

Secretary  of  Legation  and  remained  my  friend — 
that  this  interpretation  was  rigorously  true. 

The  arrival  of  the  200  Colombian  soldiers  was 
imaginary,  and  yet,  by  an  extraordinary  coin- 
cidence, this  arrival  did  take  place  on  the  very 
date  announced,  November  3rd,  as  will  be  seen 
later  on. 

As  soon  as  I  understood  the  signification  of  the 
mysterious  telegram  I  realized  that  it  was  in- 
cumbent upon  me  to  fire  the  fuse.  Amador  had 
failed.  It  remained  for  me  to  set  the  machine  in 
motion. 

A    MAN-OF-WAR,    OR    THE    CANAL    IS    LOST 

The  whole  question  of  the  life  or  death  of  the 
Canal  was  condensed  in  the  following  words:  "An 
American  man-of-war  must  be  sent  to  Colon."  If 
I  succeeded  in  this  task,  the  Canal  was  saved.  If 
I  failed,  it  was  lost. 

After  so  many  turns  and  twists  of  destiny  the 
problem  of  its  preservation  was  henceforth  con- 
centrated on  this  sole  point.  I  could  just  as  well 
think  over  it  in  the  train  as  in  my  own  room.  If 
I  could  find  the  solution  between  New  York  and 
Washington  I  could  act  immediately  on  arrival 
there.  Without  further  reflection  I  seized  my 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      233 

valise  and  hurried  to  take  the  next  train  to  Wash- 
ington. 

When  I  arrived  my  plan  was  settled.  It  was 
based  on  information  that  had  appeared  in  the 
papers  during  the  preceding  days.  Did  they  not 
say  that  the  Dixie  had  brought  troops  to  Guanta- 
mano  in  view  of  possible  disturbance  on  the 
Isthmus?  Did  they  not  say  that  the  Nashville 
was  at  Kingston?  Evidently  the  Government 
was  ready  to  land  troops  on  the  Isthmus.  It  was 
ready  to  fulfil  once  more  its  police  duty,  and  to 
maintain  order  for  the  free  circulation  of  the  trains, 
as  the  treaty  of  1846  compelled  it  to  do. 

It  was  only  necessary,  therefore,  to  exert  a  very 
slight' pressure  in  order  to  turn  the  scale  of  fate. 
All  that  was  necessary  was  to  convince  the 
American  Government  that  its  duty  was  to  send  a 
cruiser  immediately,  in  anticipation  of  probable 
events,  rather  than  to  wait  for  their  explosion. 

I  soon  found  the  way  to  exert  this  slight  pres- 
sure. 

I  had  received  the  news  of  the  arrival  of  Colom- 
bian troops  for  the  2nd  or  3rd  of  November.  I 
had  a  right  to  point  out  the  possibility  or  even  the 
probability  of  a  conflict  when  they  should  land. 
I  had  the  right  to  recall  that  a  conflagration,  in  a 


234      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

town  built  of  wood,  is  the  inevitable  consequence 
of  an  armed  conflict.  I  had  the  right  to  cite  the 
historic  example,  which  I  had  witnessed  in  April, 
1885,  of  the  destruction  of  Colon,  in  just  such  condi- 
tions. I  had  the  right  to  say  that  I  had  also  been 
a  witness  of  the  dire  criticism  to  which  Captain 
Kean,  the  commander  of  the  Galena,  had  been  sub- 
jected by  American  opinion  for  his  inactivity  in 
1885.  The  American  man-of-war,  the  Galena, 
was  at  the  time  in  Colon  waters.  Her  commander, 
Kean,  had  abstained  from  any  attempt  to  prevent 
the  fight,  and  had  been  violently  attacked  for  his 
abstention. 

When  I  left  the  train  I  had  in  my  head  the  clear 
and  decisive  formula  out  of  which  would  naturally 
result  the  action  of  the  American  Government  and 
the  despatch  of  the  boat  nearest  to  Colon. 

Everybody  I  met  asked  me  the  question: 
"What  is  going  to  happen  at  Panama?"  I  re- 
peatedly answered: 

"Remember  the  date  of  November  3,  1903. 
That  day  will  behold  a  repetition  of  what  happened 
there  on  the  1st  of  April,  1885,  the  burning  of 
Colon.  The  armed  conflict,  which  will  be  the 
cause  of  the  fire,  is  expected  everywhere.  It  is 
spoken  of  publicly  in  the  press.  The  only  differ- 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      235 

ence  between  1885  and  1903  is  that  the  blame  will 
not  be  attributed  to  the  captain  of  a  man-of-war 
in  the  waters  of  Colon.  It  will  rest  on  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  itself.  President  Cleve- 
land had  sent  a  man-of-war,  the  Galena,  which  did 
not  manage  to  interfere  in  time.  To-morrow  the 
disaster  will  be  imputed  to  President  Roosevelt  for 
not  having  taken  the  slightest  preventive  measure. 
He  will  not  have  sent  even  a  little  cruiser." 

I  repeated  this  formula  to  all  the  friends  I  met. 
Of  course  according  to  circumstances  I  moderated 
its  expression  without  dulling  its  point. 

I  called  on  Mr.  Loomis  in  his  own  house,  but  I 
naturally  suppressed  everything  referring  to  the 
eventual  responsibilities  of  the  government  of 
which  he  was  a  member.  Mr.  Loomis  was  too 
acute  an  observer  not  to  draw  the  conclusion  him- 
self. I  understood,  by  the  particular  gravity  of 
his  expression,  that  the  parable  had  struck  home 
and  that  he  clearly  understood  the  imminence  of  a 
fresh  and  unexpected  peril. 

On  the  following  day  I  was  preparing  to  leave 
Washington  before  noon.  To  kill  time  I  went  out 
for  a  walk,  uncertain  as  to  the  wisdom  of  paying  a 
visit  to  Mr.  Hay  himself.  My  lucky  star  brought  me 
face  to  face  with  Mr.  Loomis  near  the  White  House. 


236      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

"I  have  thought  over  what  you  said  to  me  yes- 
terday," said  he;  "this  situation  is  really  fraught 
with  peril  for  the  town  of  Colon.  It  would  be 
deplorable  if  the  catastrophe  of  1885  were  to  be 
renewed  to-day.  If  you  have  any  news,  please 
communicate  it  to  me." 

This  request  was  to  remain  without  results.  I 
wrote  to  Mr.  Loomis  during  the  following  days, 
but  merely  to  tell  him  that  I  had  no  further 
news  than  had  already  been  published  in  the 
press. 

I  took  leave  of  him.  There  was  no  longer  any 
need  of  seeing  Mr.  Hay.  The  words  I  had  heard 
could  have  but  one  interpretation:  "A  cruiser  has 
been  sent  to  Colon."  This  cruiser  could  only  be 
the  one  stationed  nearest  to  the  Isthmus,  the 
Nashville.  She  was  at  Kingston  at  a  distance  of 
550  geographical  miles  from  Colon.  She  was  a 
little  boat  of  ten  or  eleven  knots  speed.  Within 
two  days  she  would  cover  the  distance.  Adding 
twelve  hours  for  preparations,  she  would  reach  the 
Isthmus  within  two  and  a  half  days. 

I    CABLE   THAT  THE   MAN-OF-WAR  IS  COMING 

I  left  Washington  at  11  o'clock  for  New  York, 
and  I  quitted  the  train  at  Baltimore. 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      237 

I  went  straight  to  the  telegraph  office  and  sent 
the  following  cablegram: 

PIZALDO — Panama. 

All  right  will  reach  ton  and  half  obscure — JONES. 

The  signification  was: 

PIZA  NEPHEWS  [commercial  firm  of  Mr.  Lindo], 
Panama.  All  right  will  reach  two  days  and  half ,  This 
message  is  for  Amador. — BUNATI-VARILLA. 

In  sending  this  cablegram  I  was  certain  it  would 
produce  no  effect  if  the  man-of-war  did  not  arrive. 
If,  contrary  to  my  rationally  established  convic- 
tion, the  American  Government  should  take  no 
measure  of  precaution,  no  evil  could  result  from 
my  message.  Nothing  would  take  place  so  long 
as  the  boat  did  not  appear. 

But  if  the  American  Government  had  really 
decided  not  to  remain  inert,  confronted  as  it  was 
by  the  clear  and  obvious  duty  dictated  by  circum- 
stances, then  the  revolution  was  made — made 
because  the  connection  between  (a)  the  request  to 
me  for  a  boat  and  (6)  the  arrival  of  the  boat,  ma- 
terialized in  the  eyes  of  the  confederates  the  reality 
of  the  influence  which  Amador  had  asserted  to 
them  I  possessed  over  the  American  Government. 


238      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

Evidently  they  imagined  the  situation  to  be 
quite  different  from  what  it  really  was.  They 
believed  this  influence  to  be  of  a  direct  and  material 
order.  They  could  not  understand  matters  as 
they  really  were.  They  could  not  imagine  that 
there  was  no  material  influence  exerted,  and  that 
I  was  merely  correctly  and  mathematically  calcu- 
lating the  forces  at  play,  among  which  the  main 
ones  were  the  duty  and  the  interest  of  the  Ameri- 
can Government. 

The  despatch  which  was  at  last  to  fire  the  slow 
match,  and  thus  determine  the  explosion  on  the 
Isthmus,  was  handed  in  at  the  Central  Telegraph 
Office  at  Baltimore  at  ten  minutes  past  noon  on 
October  30,  1903. 

As  the  despatch  arrived  on  the  evening  of  the 
same  day,  the  confederates,  counting  two  days  and 
a  half  from  that  hour,  could  expect  the  man-of-war 
on  the  morning  of  the  2nd  of  November. 

I  left  Baltimore  and  arrived  in  the  evening  in 
New  York.  I  found  there  a  new  cablegram  from 
Panama  announcing  the  arrival  of  Colombian 
forces  on  the  Pacific  side  for  ten  days  later.  I 
was  asked  at  the  end  when  the  ship  would  arrive 
at  Colon. 

This  despatch,  delivered  in  New  York  at  7.10  in 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      239 

the  evening,  had  evidently  left  Panama  before  the 
arrival  of  my  despatch  from  Baltimore. 

To  this  second  question  I  answered  as  to  the 
first  one,  relying  on  my  mathematical  calculation 
as  to  the  probable  course  of  events.  I  calculated 
what  would  be  the  likely  date  of  the  arrival  of 
the  naval  forces  which  Mr.  Hay  had  told  me  on 
the  16th  of  October  had  been  ordered  to  leave  for 
the  Isthmus  on  the  Pacific  side.  A  telegram  to 
the  Evening  Post  of  October  22nd  had  announced 
the  departure  of  the  Marblehead  and  the  Mohican 
for  a  cruise  in  southern  waters.  Their  true  desti- 
nation was  evidently  that  to  which  Mr.  Hay  had 
alluded. 

The  distance  from  San  Francisco  to  Panama  is 
3,277  geographical  miles.  It  could  be  covered 
therefore  in  twelve  or  thirteen  days  at  the  velocity 
of  from  ten  to  eleven  knots.  The  ships  could 
arrive  by  the  3rd  or  4th  of  November.  Tak- 
ing these  calculations  as  a  basis  I  wired  that 
within  four  days  there  would  be  American  ships 
on  the  Pacific,  and  within  two  days  on  the  Atlantic 
side.  I  had  reduced  from  two  and  a  half  days  to 
two  days  the  period  indicated  in  my  telegram  from 
Baltimore,  because  more  than  nine  hours  had 
passed  between  the  first  and  second  despatches. 


240      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

Thus  was  fixed  on  the  day  of  the  30th  the  plan 
of  future  events. 


REPLY  TO  THE  CRITICISMS  OF  RATIONAL  DIPLOMACY 

Some  people  will  perhaps  criticize  me  for  having 
thus  announced  future  facts  without  possessing 
greater  material  certainty  and  in  relying  merely  on 
logical  conjectures. 

My  only  reply  to  such  critics  is  that  they  have 
not  the  slightest  idea  of  scientific  methods. 

I  built  all  this  subtle  diplomatic  structure  as  a 
bridge  is  built:  that  is,  by  calculating  its  various 
elements,  and  not  by  trying  to  obtain  direct  in- 
formation, which  it  would  have  been  impossible 
to  obtain. 

The  abstract  operations  of  trigonometry  led  to 
results  more  certain  than  physical  measurements, 
when  both  operations  are  possible,  but  in  the 
majority  of  cases  trigonometry  alone  can  be  used. 
I  have  made  diplomacy  as  it  were  by  trigonometry. 

Such  a  method  will,  without  doubt,  seem  incom- 
prehensible to  many  minds.  To  these  people  I 
may  reply  that  they  are  incapable  of  rising  to 
the  conception  of  a  work  such  as  that  of  Panama. 
They  will  never  grasp  the  new  processes  which  its 
realization  will  have  made  necessary  in  all  the  or- 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      241 

ders  of  mental  activity.  One  may  say  to  them 
what  Pascal  said  to  those  who,  wanting  in  the 
mathematical  mind,  discussed  with  him  the  in- 
finitely small: 

Adopt  other  professions.  There  are  many  such  in 
which  your  mind  could  be  useful.  But  for  Heaven's 
sake  do  not  exhaust  yourself  in  trying  to  penetrate  an 
order  of  ideas  in  which  you  will  lose  your  time,  and 
where  your  efforts  will  be  futile. 

THE   DEPARTURE   OF   THE   "NASHVILLE" 

On  the  morrow  of  the  following  day,  that  is  to 
say,  on  November  1,  1903,  a  despatch  which  rigor- 
ously verified  my  induction  was  published  in  the 
New  York  Times.  The  paper  printed  it  under  the 
title: 

Nashville  sailed — for  Colombia? 

It  read: 

Kingston,  Jamaica,  31st  Oct. 

The  American  cruiser  Nashville  left  this  morning 
with  sealed  orders.  Her  destination  is  believed  to  be 
Colombia. 

The  Nashville  had  left  on  the  morning  of  October 
31st.  With  her  speed  of  ten  or  eleven  knots  she 
was  therefore  due  to  arrive  on  the  morning  of 
November  2nd. 


242      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

My  prevision  ought  consequently  to  have  be- 
come a  reality,  but  things  did  not  happen  quite  so 
exactly.  It  was  in  the  evening — not  in  the  morn- 
ing, of  November  2nd,  that  the  Nashville  dropped 
anchor  in  the  harbour  of  Colon. 

I  waited  until  the  2nd  of  November,  and  then  I 
sent  to  Doctor  Amador  a  cablegram  containing 
only  the  one  word:  "Boy."  It  meant:  "Noth- 
ing has  happened  which  requires  modification." 
This  was  my  final  communication  to  tell  him  that 
the  route  was  open,  and  that  I  did  not  perceive 
any  obstacle. 

The  2nd  of  November  passed  without  any  news. 
With  the  3rd  of  the  month  expired  the  last  day 
of  the  period  of  one  week  after  the  arrival  of  Ama- 
dor at  Panama  which  I  had  fixed  for  carrying  out 
the  revolution. 

Deeply  .disturbed  by  this  silence  I  went  on  the 
morning  of  the  3rd  to  the  offices  of  Mr.  Lindo.  I 
wanted  to  prepare  with  his  ordinary  code  a  des- 
patch which  my  conventional  code  did  not  allow 
me  to  send  on  account  of  its  incompleteness.  I 
wished  to  make  a  supreme  appeal  to  the  energy 
and  courage  of  the  people  of  the  Isthmus.  I  had 
great  difficulty  in  composing  this  despatch  with  a 
code  adapted  only  to  commercial  operations. 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      243 

As  I  left  the  building  to  go  to  the  telegraph  office 
a  newsboy  ran  up  to  me  and  offered  me  the 
Evening  Telegram.  I  bought  it,  and  cast  a  glance 
at  it.  It  announced  the  landing  of  General  Tovar, 
and  of  the  Colombian  troops  the  very  same  morn- 
ing at  Colon,  as  well  as  the  arrival,  on  the  previous 
evening,  of  the  Nashville.  Nothing  more — not  a 
word  of  the  slightest  revolutionary  movement. 

Everything  seemed  to  be  irretrievably  lost. 

I  destroyed  the  despatch  I  had  prepared.  I 
returned  to  the  Waldorf-Astoria,  heart-broken  and 
in  a  state  of  complete  despair.  For  the  first  time 
in  my  life  I  felt  that  the  enterprise  of  Panama  was 
forever  dead.  It  was  the  supreme  test  of  Des- 
tiny, for  it  was  just  at  this  very  moment  that  the 
Phoenix  was  arising  from  its  own  ashes. 

I  spent  the  whole  afternoon  in  a  state  of  profound 
dejection.  My  dear  wife  tried  to  comfort  and 
encourage  me  in  this  infinite  sorrow.  Finally,  she 
prevailed  on  me  to  dominate  my  grief  and  to  go 
with  her  to  dine  at  Mr.  John  Bigelow's,  where  we 
had  accepted  an  invitation. 

ALL  APPEARED  TO  BE  LOST:     ALL  IS   SAVED 

When  I  returned  to  the  Waldorf-Astoria  at 
about  10  o'clock  that  evening  a  telegram  was 


244      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

handed  to  me.     It  was  in  plain  language,  and 
signed  by  Amador.     It  ran  thus: 

Proclamada    Independencia   del   Istmo   sin   sangre.* 
— AMADOR. 


The  life  of  the  great  undertaking  had  been  saved 
at  the  very  moment  when  it  seemed  to  be  destroyed 
forever. 

What  had  taken  place? 

The  rumour  of  the  arrival  of  the  American  man- 
of-war,  that  I  had  announced,  had  promptly  leaked 
out  and  spread  all  over  the  Isthmus. 

From  the  morning  of  the  2nd  of  November  all  the 
inhabitants  of  Colon  were  looking  toward  Kingston, 
hoping  for  the  appearance  of  the  ship  symbolizing 
American  protection. 

As  the  hours  passed  disappointment  gradually 
invaded  all  hearts. 

Toward  nightfall  despair  was  general,  when 
suddenly  a  light  smoke  arose  in  the  direction  of  the 
northeast. 

This  was  a  ray  of  hope!    If  it  was  the  liberator! 

Little  by  little  the  smoke  thickened,  the  ship 
emerged  above  the  horizon,  and  soon  the  S tar- 
Spangled  Banner  dominated  the  Bay  of  Colon. 

•Independence  of  Isthmus  proclaimed  withoulsbloodshed. 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      245 

A  burst  of  delirious  enthusiasm  shook  the  whole 
Isthmus. 

It  was  really  true:  Bunau-Varilla  had  effectively 
obtained  for  the  unfortunate  country  the  protec- 
tion of  the  powerful  Republic! 

At  this  moment,  without  one  word  having  been 
uttered,  the  revolution  was  accomplished  in  the 
hearts  of  all.  The  regime  of  Colombian  tyranny 
was  over! 

The  people  were  so  intoxicated  with  joy  that 
serious  business  was  postponed  until  the  following 
day.  Instead  of  supplying  the  wharves  of  Colon 
with  an  armed  force  to  prevent  a  possible  landing 
of  the  Colombian  troops,  nothing  was  done.  The 
presence  of  such  an  armed  force  would  have  en- 
tailed the  immediate  interference  of  the  American 
cruiser,  and  prevented  a  landing  which  would  have 
provoked  disorder.  But  the  confederates  had  for- 
gotten this  detail  in  their  blind  happiness. 

It  happened  that  this  arrival  of  the  Colombian 
troops — which  they  had  invented  in  order  to  justify 
the  despatch :  "  Press  steamer  Colon" — took  place 
the  very  same  day  they  had  announced. 

On  the  morning  of  the  3rd  of  November  General 
Tovar  arrived  quietly  with  about  five  hundred 
soldiers. 


246      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

It  was  the  news  which  the  Evening  Telegram  had 
brought  to  me. 

This  unexpected  event  awoke  the  confederates. 
The  employees  of  the  Panama  Railroad  availed 
themselves  of  various  technical  pretexts  to  delay  the 
formation  of  a  special  train  required  for  the  troops. 

General  Tovar  took  the  train  for  Panama,  leav- 
ing his  troops  behind  him  at  Colon. 

Meanwhile  the  patriotic  excitement  determined 
by  the  arrival  of  the  Nashville  was  steadily  gaining 
on  the  entire  population,  as  well  as  the  garrison  of 
Panama. 

The  aged  Doctor  Amador  set  the  example.  He 
went  to  the  barracks,  and  started  the  whole  move- 
ment by  having  General  Tovar  and  his  officers 
arrested  by  General  Huertas,  commander  of  the 
Panama  garrison. 

The  Independent  Republic  of  Panama  was  im- 
mediately proclaimed. 

The  revolution  had  been  made  without  shedding 
a  drop  of  blood.  It  was  due  to  the  unanimous  ex- 
plosion of  a  whole  nation,  which  refused  to  be 
stifled  by  the  policy  of  Bogota,  a  policy  now  known 
to  have  been  inspired  by  the  diplomacy  of  the 
Boche  against  the  United  States. 

But,  as  it  happens  with  nations  weakened  by  a  long 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      247 

military  oppression,  this  explosion  had  taken  place 
only  when  the  people  felt  they  were  no  longer  alone. 

This  revolution,  which  it  would  have  been  so 
easy  to  accomplish  from  the  27th  of  October, 
when  there  were  no  obstacles  in  the  way,  was 
accomplished  in  face  of  the  dreaded  troops  of  the 
tyrant.  If  these  troops  had  arrived  twenty-four 
hours  earlier  nobody  would  have  made  a  move. 
But  they  had  landed  twelve  hours  after  the  sym- 
bolic arrival  of  the  Nashville  had  fired  hi  all  hearts 
the  spark  of  hope,  and  thus  restored  general  self- 
confidence.  People  had  seen  therein  the  extended 
hand  of  the  powerful  neighbour  republic.  And 
that  proof  of  friendship  had  made  all  hearts  beat 
more  quickly  and  raised  everybody's  courage. 

The  Republic  of  Panama  had  therefore  been 
born;  and  it  had  sprung  from  a  legitimate  revolt 
against  the  most  intolerable  oppression. 

REVOLUTION  NOT  FOMENTED   BY  THE  U.    S. 

Colombia  can  say  to-day  that  the  Republic  of 
Panama  was  born  owing  to  American  protection. 
This  is  true  if  the  word  "protection"  is  under- 
stood as  expressing  solidarity  between  the  mighty 
and  the  weak  in  the  defence  of  common  and  legiti- 
mate interests.  It  was  not  born  from  a  con- 


248      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

spiracy  fomented  by  the  American  authorities. 
It  developed  out  of  the  simultaneous  and  parallel, 
but  distinct,  movements  in  two  separate  spheres 
of  the  same  aspiration:  the  completion  of  the 
Panama  Canal.  Everyone  remained  in  his  proper 
place  and  acted  his  legitimate  part.* 

"This  statement,  already  expressed  in  identical  terms  in  the  author's  book  of  1913: 
"Panama;  the  Creation — the  Destruction — the  Resurrection,"  was  confirmed  by  Col. 
Roosevelt  in  his  book  of  February,  1916:  "Fear  God  and  Take  Your  Own  Part."  Here 
are  some  quotations  of  said  book: 

"I  saw  at  the  time  very  many  men,  American,  natives  of  Panama,  and  Europeans 
all  of  whom  told  me  that  they  believed  a  revolution  was  impending,  and  most  of  whom 
asked  me  to  take  sides  one  way  or  the  other.  The  most  noted  of  these  men  whom  I 
now  recollect  seeing  was  M.  Bunau-Varilla.  He,  however,  did  not  ask  me  to  take 
sides  one  way  or  the  other.  To  no  one  of  these  men  did  I  give  any  private  assurance 
of  any  kind  one  way  or  the  other,  referring  them  simply  to  my  published  declarations 
and  acts. 

"For  some  reasons  certain  newspapers  have  repeatedlystated  that  Mr.  X.  Y.  [name 
omitted  by  the  author  of  this  book]  was  responsible  for  the  revolution.  I  do  not  re- 
member whether  Mr.  X.  Y.  was  or  was  not  among  my  callers  during  the  months  im- 
mediately preceding  the  revolution.  But  if  he  was  I  certainly  did  not  discuss  with 
him  anything  connected  with  the  revolution.  I  do  not  remember  his  ever  speaking 
to  me  about  the  revolution  until  after  it  occurred,  and  my  understanding  was,  and  is, 
that  he  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  revolutionary  movement  which  actually  took 
place. 

On  information  received  after  the  event,  7  believed  then,  and  believe  now,  that  the 
revolutionary  movement  which  actually  succeeded  was  the  one  with  which  M.  Bunau- 
Varilla  was  connected.  He  was  sent  by  the  Government  of  Panama  as  Minister  to  this 
country  as  soon  as  Panama  became  an  independent  state,  and  he  then  made  no  secret 
of  the  fact  that  he  had  been  one  of  those  who  had  organized  the  successful  revolution 
precisely  as  was  the  case  with  the  President  and  other  officials  of  the  new  republic.  .  .  . 
In  view  of  this  double  attitude  of  the  Colombian  Government,  an  attitude  of  tyranny 
toward  Panama  and  of  robbery  toward  the  French  Company,  M.  Bunau-Varilla 
conceived  it  to  be  his  duty  to  do  all  he  could  to  aid  the  natives  of  Panama  in  throwing 
off  the  yoke  of  Colombia.  /  believe  his  attitude  was  entirely  proper.  .  .  .  But  until 
after  the  event  I  had  no  knowledge  of  his  activities  save  the  knowledge  possessed  by  all  in- 
telligent men  who  had  studied  the  affairs  of  the  Isthmus.  I  gave  him  no  aid  or  encour- 
agement. .  .  .  No  one  connectedwith  the  American  Government  instigated  the  revolu- 
tion" 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      249 

Mr.  Roosevelt,  during  the  first  revolutionary 
attempts,  avoided  anything  which  could  resemble 
collusion.  The  abandonment  of  Amador,  by 
those  who  had  promised  him  everything,  was  the 
obvious  demonstration  that  the  American  Govern- 
ment had  refused  to  lend  itself  to  anything  of  a 
compromising  character.  The  action  of  President 
Roosevelt  was  as  correct  as  it  was  active  and 
resolute. 

Colombia  can  brandish  her  titles  of  property 
over  the  Isthmus.  Her  claim  is  that  of  Shy  lock 
asking  for  the  pound  of  flesh.  The  title  of  Shy- 
lock  was  also  perfectly  well  established,  but  his 
claim  was  untenable. 

The  claim  of  Colombia  is,  and  will  remain,  un- 
,  tenable,  because  she  herself  forfeited  her  rights 
by  her  policy,  the  Boche  policy.  Her  rights  chal- 
lenged superior  rights:  the  right  of  a  nation  to 
exist;  the  right  of  humanity  to  circulate.  She 
had  violated  the  very  basis  of  her  sovereign  rights, 
namely,  the  duty  of  the  sovereign  to  protect  his 
subjects. 

With  a  stroke  of  the  pen  she  had  condemned  the 
whole  of  the  population  of  one  of  her  provinces  to 
destruction  in  order  to  satisfy  German  greed. 

With  a  stroke  of  the  pen  she  had  challenged  the 


250      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

whole  of  humanity  which  had  a  preeminent  right 
of  way  across  the  Isthmus. 

With  a  stroke  of  the  pen  she  had  cynically  an- 
nounced her  will  to  confiscate  from  the  French 
share-  and  bond-holders  all  that  still  remained 
from  the  wreck  of  their  great  enterprise. 

With  a  stroke  of  the  pen  she  had  disavowed  her 
contract  for  the  extension  of  the  term  of  the  French 
concession,  on  the  pretext  that  certain  formalities 
had  not  been  fulfilled,  whereas  through  her  own 
fault  it  had  been  a  physical  impossibility  to  fulfil 
them. 

These  are  the  violations  of  superior  rights  which 
made  the  Revolution  of  Panama  the  most  legiti- 
mate of  protests  against  tyranny.  These  are  the 
.violations  of  superior  rights  which  vitiate  the  pro- 
tests of  Colombia,  as  the  very  object  of  the  con- 
tract of  Shylock  vitiated  his  claim  for  its  judicial 
execution. 

IMMEDIATE  CONSEQUENCES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION 

I  shall  not  expand  upon  the  incidents  following 
the  Revolution  of  Panama  because  they  form  part 
of  that  portion  of  the  history  which  can  be  read  in 
the  public  press. 

Thanks  to  the  valiant  decision  of  the  Isthmian 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      251 

population  and  of  her  leaders:  Amador,  Arango, 
Arias,  Carlos  Arosemena,  and  others,  I  had  torn 
the  Isthmus  and  its  precious  waterway  from  the 
Colombiano-German  tyranny. 

I  then  demonstrated  to  Secretary  Hay  that  the 
laurels  of  final  victory  would  belong  to  the  quickest 
action. 

The  American  Government,  completely  inde- 
pendent from  any  embarrassing  connivance  with 
the  revolutionists,  was  free  to  act. 

The  Panama  Government  delegated  to  me  un- 
limited powers  to  represent  the  Republic  not  only 
before  the  Washington  Government,  but  also  be- 
fore all  governments  having  embassies  or  lega- 
tions at  Washington. 

I  could  act  immediately,  and  the  antipathy 
generated  universally  by  the  inadmissible  attitude 
of  Colombia  found  its  expression  in  the  action  of 
all  governments  of  the  earth. 

The  German  Government  did  not  care  to  be  set 
aside  and  to  show  by  its  attitude  what  was  its  part 
in  Colombian  politics.  It  recognized  Panama  al- 
most as  soon  as  the  other  nations  did. 

The  successive  events  followed  with  a  dazzling 
rapidity. 

The  Panama  Revolution  took  place  on  Novem* 


252      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

ber  3,  1903.  Three  days  afterward,  on  Novem- 
ber 6th,  the  new  Government  was  recognized  de 
facto  by  the  United  States;  ten  days  afterward 
it  was  recognized  de  jure  by  President  Roosevelt; 
thirteen  days  afterward  it  was  recognized  de  jure 
by  the  Republic  of  France — fifteen  days  afterward 
I  signed  the  Hay-Bunau-Varilla  Treaty  which 
granted  the  Canal  rights  in  perpetuity  to  the 
United  States,  guaranteed  the  protection  of 
Panama,  and  asserted  anew  the  rights  of  the 
French  Company;  thirty  days  afterward — on 
December  2nd — the  treaty  was  ratified  by  Pan- 
ama. Finally,  on  the  23rd  of  February,  1904,  it 
was  ratified  by  the  Senate  of  the  United  States 
without  changing  a  word  of  its  text,  and  became 
the  law  of  the  land. 

The  rapidity  with  which  this  most  important 
document  was  made  is  worthy  of  mention. 

After  my  official  reception  by  the  President  as 
Minister  Plenipotentiary  of  the  Panama  Republic, 
on  Friday  the  13th  of  November,  I  urged  Secretary 
Hay  to  conclude  with  the  greatest  speed  the  treaty 
that  was  to  replace  the  Hay-Herran  Treaty. 

Two  days  later,  on  Sunday  the  fifteenth,  he  sent 
me  the  draft  of  the  treaty  he  proposed,  which  was 
the  Hav-Herran  Treaty  with  insignificant  modi- 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      253 

fications.  I  saw  many  flaws  in  that  treaty 
which  could  be  used  by  the  opposition  to  raise 
innumerable  obstacles  to  its  ratification.  I  began 
on  the  following  day,  the  16th,  at  6  A.  M.,  to  write  a 
completely  new  one;  at  10  p.  M.  it  was  finished  and 
I  took  it  myself  to  Secretary  Hay's  house.  As 
he  had  retired,  I  brought  it  back  home  and  sent 
it  early  the  following  day,  the  17th  of  November. 

In  the  course  of  the  day  I  had  a  conference  with 
the  Secretary  of  State.  He  complimented  me 
on  the  clearness  of  the  new  text.  He  agreed  to  all 
my  proposals  and  we  settled  the  thorny  question 
of  the  neutrality  of  the  waterway.  At  6.40  in  the 
evening  of  the  18th  of  November  the  treaty, 
drawn  up  in  sixteen  hours  two  days  earlier,  was 
signed  without  any  other  modification  than,  in 
Art.  II,  the  substitution  of  "leases  in  perpetuity" 
by  "grants  to  the  United  States  in  perpetuity  the 
use,  occupation,  and  control." 

In  spite  of  the  most  violent  attacks  in  the  Senate 
the  text  was  of  such  strong  tissue  that  not  one 
hole  could  be  made  in  it.  It  stands  to-day,  as 
it  was,  when  Mr.  Hay  and  I  signed  it  sixteen 
years  ago. 

I  have  given  a  full  account  of  these  very  interest- 
ing senatorial  debates  in  my  book:  "Panama; 


254      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

the  Creation — the  Destruction — the  Resurrection." 
As  the  Boche  conspiracies  organized  to  wreck 
the  Hay-Bunau-Varilla  Treaty — though  they  may 
have  been  to  some  extent  influencing  this  particu- 
lar battle — were  not  very  clearly  apparent  I  shall 
not  expand  on  this  matter.  I  refer  the  reader  who 
may  be  interested  in  it  to  my  book  of  1913  just 
mentioned. 

THE   HOUR   OF   THE   RESURRECTION 

Two  formalities  remained  to  be  fulfilled:  the 
proclamation  of  the  treaty  by  the  President  of 
the  United  States,  and  the  exchange  of  ratifications. 

The  former  took  place  on  February  25, 1904,  and 
the  latter  on  the  day  following. 

At  eleven  o'clock  in  the  morning  Mr.  Hay  and 
I  exchanged  the  two  treaties  duly  ratified  by  our 
respective  governments. 

In  placing  our  signatures  beneath  the  Act  which 
registered  this  great  fact  we  rang  the  hour  of  the 
resurrection  of  the  Panama  Canal. 

It  was  for  him  and  for  myself  one  of  those 
moments  which  remain  engraved  in  the  memory 
for  the  rest  of  one's  life.  We  were  both  of  us 
deeply  moved. 

Two  strokes  of  a  pen  were  sealing  forever  the 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      255 

Destiny  of  the  Great  Thought  which  had  haunted 
Humanity  during  four  centuries. 

In  an  instant  I  beheld,  focussed  before  my  eyes, 
the  efforts  and  the  struggles  of  the  centuries  to 
wring  from  Nature  its  mystery,  from  Man  his 
prejudices. 

I  thought  of  all  those  heroes,  my  comrades  in  the 
deadly  battle,  worthy  grandsons  of  those  Gauls 
who  conquered  the  Ancient  World,  worthy  sons 
of  those  Frenchmen  who  conquered  the  Modern 
World,  who  fell  in  the  struggle  against  Nature,  a 
smile  on  their  lips,  happy  to  sacrifice  their  lives 
to  this  work  which  was  to  render  still  more  dazzling 
the  glory  of  French  genius. 

I  thought  of  the  shameful  league  of  all  the  pas- 
sions, of  all  the  hatreds,  of  all  the  jealousies,  of  all 
the  cowardices,  of  all  the  ignorances,  to  crucify 
this  great  Idea,  and  with  it  all  those  who  had 
hoped,  through  its  realization,  to  give  France  one 
more  glorious  page  in  the  history  of  Humanity. 

I  thought  of  my  solitary  work,  when  I  went 
preaching  Truth  on  the  highways. 

I  thought  of  the  untold  number  of  stupidities 
I  had  had  to  destroy,  of  prejudices  I  had  had  to 
disarm,  of  insults  I  had  had  to  submit  to,  of  inter- 
ests I  had  had  to  frustrate,  of  conspiracies  I  had 


256      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

had  to  thwart,  in  order  to  celebrate  the  Victory  of 
Truth  over  Error  and  mark  at  last  the  hour  of  the 
Resurrection  of  the  Panama  Canal. 

Mr.  Hay  silently  shared  my  deep  emotion,  be- 
cause he  had  been  the  witness  of  the  last  four 
months  of  efforts,  and  his  mind  travelled  back  with 
mine  over  the  twenty  years  which  had  preceded 
them. 

The  two  signatures  once  appended  we  shook 
hands  and  I  left  him  simply  saying:  "It  seems  to 
me  as  if  we  had  together  made  something  great." 

I  went  on,  having  at  last  unburdened  my  heart 
of  the  load  which  had  so  long  weighed  on  it. 

I  had  fulfilled  my  mission,  the  mission  I  had 
taken  on  myself;  I  had  safeguarded  the  work  of 
French  genius;  I  had  avenged  its  honour;  I  had 
served  France. 

EPILOGUE   OF   THE   EEVOLUTION 

WHEN  I  left  the  Department  of  State  I  went  to 
the  first  telegraph  office  to  inform  the  Government 
of  Panama  that  I  had  accomplished  my  task,  and 
that  at  the  same  time,  as  Minister  Plenipotentiary 
of  the  Republic  of  Panama,  I  considered  my  mis- 
sion ended.  Soon  after,  the  American  Govern- 
ment made  use  of  the  rights  of  option  which  had 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      257 

been  granted  by  the  New  Company  in  January, 
1902.  Two  prominent  jurists,  Messrs  W.  A.  Day, 
Assistant  Attorney-General  of  the  United  States, 
and  Charles  W.  Russell,  special  Assistant  Attorney- 
General  of  the  United  States,  came  to  Paris  to 
execute  the  deed.  They  signed  it  on  April  22, 
1904,  and  it  became  binding  on  the  morrow  by 
ratification  at  the  meeting  of  the  shareholders  of 
the  New  Company. 

After  paying  $40,000,000  to  J.  P.  Morgan  &  Co. 
for  their  subsequent  transfer  to  the  New  Company, 
the  American  Government  resumed  on  the  4th  of 
May  the  work  of  completion  of  the  great  French 
undertaking  after  fifteen  years,  four^  months,  and 
twenty  days'  practical  suspension  of  activity. 

I  will  mention  three  among  the  various  ex- 
pressions of  gratitude  which  came  from  the  most 
distant  sources,  and  which  my  friends  symbolized 
in  the  gift  of  an  admirable  medal  by  Chaplain.  I 
take  these  three  examples  because  they  express  the 
sentiments  of  the  governments  of  the  three  in- 
terested countries. 

The  Government  of  the  French  Republic  im- 
mediately conferred  upon  me  the  Cross  of  Officer 
of  the  Legion  of  Honour.  It  was  the  first  distinc- 
tion connected  with  the  Panama  Canal  given  since 


258      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

the  downfall  of  the  Old  Company  in  1888.  This 
promotion  in  the  Legion  of  Honour  from  the  rank 
of  Knight  to  that  of  Officer  possessed,  in  the  cir- 
cumstances, a  significance  particularly  precious  to 
me. 

Secretary  Hay  interpreted  the  sentiments  of  the 
Government  of  the  United  States.  He  wrote — 
when  the  French  Government  had  shown  me,  as 
I  have  just  stated,  its  appreciation  of  my  services 
to  France — this  simple  and  eloquent  testimony 
of  his  government's  appreciation  of  my  services  to 
the  United  States : 

It  is  not  often  given  to  any  man  to  render  such  a 
service  to  two  countries  and  to  the  civilized  world  as  you 
have  done. 

As  to  the  Republic  of  Panama  the  expression  of 
her  gratitude  came  later,  but  it  was  all  the  more 
eloquent  and  explicit. 

When  Doctor  Amador  died,  after  having  filled 
the  office  of  President  of  the  Republic,  I  recalled 
the  decisive  and  courageous  part  he  had  played  in 
the  liberation  of  his  native  land. 

I  wired,  the  3rd  of  May,  1909,  to  President 
Obaldia,  Amador's  successor,  the  following  mes- 
sage: 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      259 

At  the  moment  of  the  death  of  your  illustrious  predeces- 
sor, I  wish  to  express  to  Your  Excellency  how  much  I  share 
the  sorrow  of  the  Republic  which  he  has  contributed  to 
establish. 

His  name  will  remain  forever  associated  with  the  work 
of  the  Union  of  the  Oceans,  a  thing  which  would  have  re- 
mained a  chimera  without  the  formation  of  the  Republic 
of  Panama. 

My  mind  goes  back  with  emotion  toward  those  tragic 
moments  of  September,  1903,  when  Amador,  betrayed  and 
abandoned,  came  to  confide  to  me  his  despair,  and  when 
we  undertook  together  the  liberation  of  the  Isthmus,  which 
has  formed  the  base  of  the  realization  of  the  "Straits  of 
Panama." 

His  heroic  patriotism  led  the  revolution  of  November 
3rd  to  a  successful  issue. 

The  slaying  of  Oppression  has  unchained  Progress. 
PHILIPPE  BUNAU-VARILLA. 

On  May  13,  1909,  I  received  the  following 
answer  from  President  Obaldia: 

/  am  grateful  to  you  for  the  share  you  take  in  the  sorrow 
caused  by  the  death  of  President  Amador.  The  remem- 
brances you  recall  have  deeply  moved  the  public  sentiment. 
It  is  a  page  of  our  history. 

Our  people  will  keep  eternally  engraved  in  their  memory 
your  fruitful  services,  and  will  put  in  a  preeminent  place 
the  names  of  Amador  and  your  own. 

The  national  gratitude  gives  them  the  title  of  "Bene- 
factors of  Panama" — OBALDIA. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

CONCLUSION 

I  HAVE  now  led  the  reader  through  the  labyrinth 
of  the  boche  intrigues  and  conspiracies  of  which 
Panama  was  the  centre  from  1888  to  1903,  that  is 
during  fourteen  solid  years. 

When  a  child  of  eleven  years  I  witnessed,  with 
teeth  set  and  fists  clinched,  the  collapse  of  France  in 
1870-71.  Destiny  made  this  child,  fifteen  years 
later,  to  be  the  chief  engineer  of  the  Panama  Canal. 

During  the  thirty-four  years  which  lapsed  from 
1885  to  1914  two  ambitions  filled  my  brain  and  my 
heart. 

What  I  desired  far  more  than  any  other  material 
or  moral  satisfaction  was,  first,  to  see  the  immortal 
creation  of  the  French  genius  at  Panama  finally 
completed  for  the  utility  and  the  service  of  civiliza- 
tion; second,  to  see  France  washing  the  slate  of  his- 
tory with  Prussian  blood,  and  writing — with  her 
own  in  luminous  letters — the  date  of  her  triumph. 

I  always  lived  with  the  hope  that  I  should  see 

260 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      261 

the  second  phase  opened  soon  after  the  completion 
of  the  first. 

By  an  extraordinary  coincidence  the  glorious 
war  of  1914  began  on  the  very  same  day  that  the 
first  ocean  steamer  passed  from  the  Atlantic  to  the 
Pacific,  across  the  Central  American  Cordillera. 

I  was  on  that  steamer,  the  Cristobal,  on  the  3rd 
of  August,  1914.  The  acclamations  of  those  who 
saluted  the  conclusion  of  the  greatest  marvel  of  the 
Old  and  of  the  New  World  seemed  to  me  as  the 
distant  echo  of  the  roar  of  the  guns  defending  the 
holy  soil  of  France  against  her  vile  invader. 

The  simultaneity  of  these  two  parallel  ambitions 
has  led  me  naturally  to  observe  connections  be- 
tween the  two  orders  of  facts  which  escaped  other 
people's  attention.  I  could  see  distinctly  the  thin 
and  dissimulated  threads  which  linked  the  German 
conspirators  and  the  Panama  problem  through 
the  political  events  of  France,  of  the  United  States, 
of  Colombia,  and  of  Venezuela. 

The  Battle  of  Verdun  has  brushed  off  my  right 
leg  from  above  the  knee,  but  as  Stephane  Lauzanne 
wrote  me,  it  has  left  intact  my  brains  and  my 
heart. 

I  am  profoundly  happy  to  be  able — thanks  to 
this  providential  preservation — to  expose  publicly 


£62      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

these  mysterious  threads  which  so  long  were  visible 
to  me  alone. 

I  have  shown  that  everything  points  toward  the 
hand  of  the  Boche,  in  the  submarine  mine  which,  in 
1888,  stranded  the  financial  ship,  on  which  was  the 
fortune  of  the  Panama  enterprise. 

I  have  shown,  in  reproducing  a  letter  written 
and  published  in  1906,  that  the  author  of  the  article 
which  in  1892  sank  forever  the  French  Canal 
Company,  the  De  Lesseps  Company,  is  Ernest 
Judet  the  journalist  of  then  great  repute,  who  is 
now  indicted  for  high  treason  committed  during 
the  Great  War. 

I  have  shown  how  these  deadly  conspiracies 
aimed  at  the  destruction  of  the  moral  health  of 
France,  at  the  cutting  of  all  the  sinews  which  a 
nation  requires  in  order  to  wage  war:  Confidence 
in  herself,  Confidence  in  her  leaders! 

I  have  shown  how  I  was  able  to  countercheck 
these  perfidious  as  well  as  nefarious  plots,  and, 
after  ten  years  of  struggle,  rehabilitate  French 
Genius  in  bringing  about  the  adoption  by  the 
United  States  of  the  foreign-French  solution  of 
Panama,  in  preference  to  what  was  held  for  the 
National-American  solution  of  Nicaragua. 

I  have  shown  how — after  undergoing  that  defeat 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      263 

and,  even  before,  when  it  was  looming  above  the 
horizon — the  Boche  changed  his  batteries  and  laid 
snares  both  in  Colombia  and  in  Venezuela  simul- 
taneously to  obtain  possession  of  the  Canal  itself  and 
of  a  naval  J^ase4n-¥€nezuelaJrpm  which  to  exercise 
a  military  control  on  its  gate  on  the  Atlantic. 

I  have  shown  how  the  Venezuelan  snares,  laid 
at  the  beginning  of  1902,  were  destroyed  at  the 
end  of  the  same  year  by  the  audacious,  energetic 
ultimatum  of  President  Roosevelt. 

I  have  shown  how  the  Boche,  when  beaten  a 
second  time,  after  having  for  a  moment  appeared 
to  relax  his  intrigues  in  Colombia,  renewed  them 
with  the  further  addition  of  criminal  pressure 
during  the  year  1903. 

I  have  shown  how  the  Colombian  ruling  element 
played  hand-in-glove  with  the  German  conspira- 
tors during  the  year  1903;  rejected  the  Hay-Herran 
Treaty  with  the  United  States;  rejected  all  proposi- 
tions to  fix  conditions  for  a  new  treaty  to  be  sub- 
stituted for  the  Hay-Herran  Treaty;  decided  to 
adopt  the  attitude  necessary  for  carrying  out  the 
confiscation  of  the  French  property  in  October, 
1904,  with  the  obvious  intention  to  transmit  that 
property  to  Germany  disguised  under  the  camou- 
flage of  a  Colombian  stock  company. 


264      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

I  have  shown  how  I  was  fortunate  enough  to 
frustrate  entirely  this  dastardly  plan  by  the  organ- 
ization of  a  rebellion  on  the  Isthmus  and  by  the 
formation  of  the  New  Republic  of  Panama.  This 
rebellion  was  the  most  sincere  expression  of  the 
legitimate  revolt  of  a  nation  of  two  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  people,  who  claimed  to  have  the 
right  to  dispose  of  themselves  and  not  to  be  crushed 
under  the  egoistic  plan  of  the  Colombian  tyrant. 

The  Revolution  of  Panama  formed  the  culminat- 
ing and  victorious  point  of  the  history  of  the 
Great  Adventure  of  Panama. 

I  have  shown  how  the  new-born  Republic  was 
welcomed  into  the  world  by  the  great  man  whom 
the  United  States  had  chosen  for  her  president, 
Theodore  Roosevelt,  and  how  he  and  his  coadjutor, 
John  Hay,  accepted  the  treaty  which  I  had  drawn 
up  and  which  ran  the  gauntlet  of  all  the  exasper- 
ated attacks  of  those  whose  political,  technical, 
financial,  egoistical  interests  had  to  be  sacrified  to 
the  Juggernaut  car  of  Progress  and  Justice,  and 
which,  after  nearly  one  hundred  days  of  desperate 
struggle,  was  ratified  by  the  American  Senate  with' 
out  reservation  nor  modifications. 

I  have  shown  how  this  triumphal,  this  noble 
end  of  the  Great  Adventure  of  Panama  not  only 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      265 

dismantled  the  strong  positions  which  the  Boche 
had  erected  against  France  and  against  the  United 
States,  but  formed  the  base  of  the  moral  rapproche- 
ment of  these  two  countries  and,  in  one  word, 
rejuvenated  the  Franco-American  friendship  prac- 
tically destroyed,  in  1870,  as  the  result  of  the 
Boche-suggested  Mexican  Expedition. 

I  have  shown  how  this  great  moral  influence 
was  used  by  President  Roosevelt  in  1905  to  par- 
alyse the  German  aggression  prepared  for  that 
year,  and  by  President  Wilson,  in  1914,  to  prevent 
the  interdiction  of  exporting  American  munitions 
of  war,  and  in  1917  to  unchain  the  long-hoped-for 
American  intervention. 

I  have  not  shown,  but  it  is  useful  to  say  this 
after  the  three  successive  defeats  of  the  Boche 
conspiracies  affecting  Panama  in  1902  and  1903, 
that  a  new  Boche  conspiracy  was  formed  in  1908 
always  aiming  at  the  military  control  of  Panama. 
The  object  of  this  last  conspiracy  was  the  pur- 
chase of  the  Galapagos  Islands  from  Ecuador  by 
Germany,  which  islands  command  the  entrance 
of  the  Canal  on  the  Pacific  Ocean. 

It  failed  also,  thanks  to  the  vigilance  of  Elihu 
Root,  Secretary  of  State  of  the  United  States. 

But  still  later  on,  in  1914,  just  before  the  be- 


266      The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama 

ginning  of  the  Great  War,  Germany  again  at- 
tempted to  inject  itself  into  the  military  domina- 
tion of  the  Panama  Canal.  She  claimed  with 
diplomatic  violence  to  have  the  right  to  par- 
ticipate in  the  control  of  the  Haytian  Customs. 
Had  the  war  resulted  in  a  German  victory,  Hayti 
would  have  become  for  Germany  an  admirable 
base  for  launching  blackmailing  expeditions  against 
Washington. 

Let  this  sincere  account  of  the  cleverness  and 
persistence  of  the  Boche  conspiracies  from  1888 
to  1914  cause  us  to  meditate  on  their  danger  in 
national  politics,  and  on  the  havoc  they  can  create. 

Let  us  keep  a  careful  eye  on  all  the  feeders  com- 
ing from  Germany  through  the  financial,  economic, 
religious,  political  associations,  when  their  General 
Staff  has  its  head  in  Germany  or  in  states  as- 
sociated with  her. 

They  are  the  natural  transmitters  of  her  subtly 
disguised  and  criminal  intrigues.  The  more  in- 
nocent the  nature  of  these  associations  appears  to 
be  the  less  innocent — and  the  more  fraught  with 
danger — it  actually  will  be,  inasmuch  as  the  Boche 
will  undoubtedly  so  manipulate  the  credit  and  the 
authority  derivable  from  those  associations  as  to 


The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama      267 

make  them  subservient  to  the  promotion  of  his 
nefarious  and  poisoned  conspiracies. 

Let  the  governments  of  the  United  States,  of 
Great  Britain  and  France  establish  a  system  to 
watch  these  Boche  conspiracies  and  prevent  their 
nefarious  consequence. 

Let  the  governments  of  these  three  great  nations 
always  remember  that  their  union  was  the  prin- 
cipal cause  of  the  victory — and  will  be  the  only 
but  powerful  factor  of  the  maintenance  of  the 
Peace. 

Let  the  great  triangle  af  the  Atlantic:  America, 
Great  Britain,  and  France  form  the  base  of  future 
civilization. 

Let  the  lessons  drawn  from  the  great  Adventure 
of  Panama  show  to  each  of  them  that  the  Trinity 
of  the  Tricolor  must  henceforth  lead  Humanity 
and  prohibit  the  Nefarious  Black  and  White  of 
Prussia  from  preparing  its  crimes  for  the  conquest 
of  the  World  and  the  destruction  of  all  non- 
Germanic  races. 

THE   END 


THE  COUNTRY  LIFE  PRESS 
GARDEN  CITY,  N  .Y. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 


LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 
on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 

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